What You Leave Behind
by Lane Anasazi
Summary: The Mirror of Erised is supposed to show your heart's desire - so why does Harry Potter see only vague, blurry darkness? Aberforth is Headmaster, Ariana is alive, Albus is in exile, and Harry must uncover his past if he's to survive his future.
1. Prologue: What Secrets Cost

_Boilerplate disclaimer, applies to this and all future chapters: It's J.K. Rowling's sandbox, I'm just playing in it._

**I don't like long Author's Notes, but then again, I like to know what I'm getting into when I start reading a fanfic. The best compromise I could come up with was to put a long, expanded summary in my profile. So, if you want to know more about the moving pieces of this story and where it's going, check my profile. If you'd rather just dive in, just dive in. Cheers, and happy reading.**

_Last updated: 12/5/14 _

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><p><strong>Prologue – What Secrets Cost<strong>

Sirius Black was going insane – unobtrusively. Azkaban was a quiet prison, as prisons went. The Dementors floated about, and the prisoners, chilled and sapped of animation, rarely made a sound. Every few hours the oppressive silence would be punctuated by a scream. Sirius could tell that it was different people screaming, but not who they were – the cells were too far apart, and the bars of his door looked out into a grey, dull hallway. But it was the same kind of scream every time – a bleak, raw, 'rage against the dying of the light' kind of scream. It would have unnerved him, if his mind was together enough to be unnerved.

Sirius had no idea how long he'd been there. It could have been a week, or a month, or four. His mind fumbled with disjointed images skittering in and out of focus, grasping for purchase.

"Got a few friends coming your way, Black."

Sirius looked up, trying to focus his gaze on the guard. The grizzled jailer was the only human being he'd seen in… his mind flinched away from that particular realization. The man, all heavy jowls and beady eyes, shoved a rough-hewn wooden bowl filled with something unidentifiable and grey through the bars of the cage.

"Friends?" asked Sirius, his voice alien to his own ears, raspy and thin. For a second, he felt a swell of something. _He means… James?_ For a second, his mind mercifully muted his recent past, and warm memories bubbled to the surface. Hogwarts. Gryffindor. Quidditch. Pranks. Feasts, sneaking, girls, classes, corridors – and just like that, it evaporated like a breath in winter. The Dementors took anything warm, in the end. And one more name rose to the surface.

_Wormtail._

Sirius choked back a scream as his brain shifted gears and quite rudely dumped him into the present.

"Reckon it'll be a nice little Death Eater reunion for you," said the guard, his mouth twisting into a sneer.

Sirius was in the process of forming a question when he heard a noise coming from down the hall. A cacophony of shouts, a staccato _bang _of curses, and one high, piercing laugh that he'd recognize anywhere. The group that came down the hall was large – a handful of guards ferrying four prisoners at wandpoint. Barty Crouch Jr. and the Lestrange brothers were going quietly – Barty, because he was limp and shaking, Rabastan and Rodolphus because they were clinging to their high-handed pureblood detachment for all it was worth. But it was taking three guards to subdue Bellatrix. Sirius's cousin looked a bit the worse for wear, her hair tangled into a rat's nest, and her black robes torn and tattered. When she saw Sirius, she locked eyes with him, threw back her head, and cackled.

"I said _shut up_, you stupid bint!" One of the guards jabbed his wand into Bellatrix's back, and with a flash of light, she stumbled to the ground. Her eyes never left Sirius's face as they dragged her past his cell, and she never stopped laughing.

"That's another four Death Eaters locked away," said the jailor with a hint of satisfaction. The man peered down the hallway to follow the progress of the new prisoners, then his beady eyes snapped back to Sirius. "Finish that right quick, or I'll come in and take it from you. I don't have all day."

Sirius started eating mechanically, idly considering a retort – the guard, in fact, did have all day. The human presence at Azkaban was a skeleton staff of low men on the Department of Magical Law Enforcement totem pole. _Sorry excuse for a wizard probably really would come in here and take my bowl instead of using his wand_, thought Sirius sourly. _He can probably barely transfigure a teacup. _He shuddered at the cold as he ate. _Then again, considering the Dementors, he really doesn't need to._

"What did they do?" asked Sirius, gesturing down the hall with his spoon.

"They're Death Eaters," said the guard, his voice finally betraying an emotion, tightly controlled, as his face crumpled in rage. "Isn't that enough?"

Sirius could easily read the tapestry of pain and loss on the guard's face. It was a look he'd seen often enough in the years since the war started. With a slow shake of his head, Sirius pushed up the sleeve of his rags and bared his left forearm.

"No, you're worse, aren't you? Didn't even take the Mark. You were a spy. A _traitor_." The guard spat at Sirius, the wet glob landing in his lanky black hair. The guard jerked his finger over his shoulder, gesturing at the retreating group of new prisoners. "At least those pieces of human garbage were honest about it. Death Eaters to the bitter end. Went after the Longbottoms even after You-Know-Who fell to the Boy Who Lived and the Ministry started rounding up all of his blasted followers."

Sirius jolted himself out of his slouch. "What did you say?" he whispered. "The Longbottoms? Are they…?"

The guard sneered at him. "You'll be happy to know your cousin held them under the Cruciatus Curse for three hours looking for information on Voldemort and trying to get them to give up Harry Potter's location. They're at St Mungo's, and they're probably never getting out." He grinned savagely. "But they never broke. Bloody heroes, they are. Imagine what would have happened if those four had gotten to the Potter boy. Wrecked _your_ coming out party, didn't he?" The guard's grin became feral.

Sirius weakly pushed the wooden bowl across the floor with his leg, his appetite gone. The guard reached through the bars and scooped up the bowl, and with a last, vicious look at Sirius, walked away. Sirius didn't even register his absence, his brain locked in a kind of spiral. _Frank. Alice. _The oppressive weight of the Dementors helped him on his way, until he couldn't stop picturing Bellatrix laughing and Alice screaming, and Frank's unresponsive eyes, and James's broken body, and Lily's auburn hair fanned out on the floor by the crib, and Harry crying…

The spiral stopped. It wasn't a happy thought, but it wasn't negative, and the Dementors couldn't take it from him. _Harry_. _Harry is alive. My godson is alive. James and Lily's son is alive. Harry needs my help_.

He held on to those thoughts like a hot ember against his heart, and though it tore at him, he _remembered_, and repeated his new, all-consuming goal like a mantra.

Sirius waited until nightfall. The Dementors never left, of course, but the guards slept. It wasn't like they needed to really guard anything. The Dementors took care of that. When he judged it close to midnight, he closed his eyes and transformed. It didn't come easy, and his very bones ached, and he whimpered pathetically as he sunk into his dog form, but he did it. He squeezed himself through the bars of the cell – however long he'd been there, a few scoops of gruel a day had left him emaciated – and padded down the hallway. He didn't remember his trip to Azkaban – everything from his confrontation with Peter to waking up in his cell was a hazy blur tinged with a desperate, furious chaos – but he figured that all else being equal, he'd head downward and see where that led him.

Finding his way out of the prison turned out to be simple. He loped out the main gate, right past two Dementors whose skeletal hands reached out, searching, clawing, but not truly sensing. He picked up speed and ran through the small, dingy graveyard and down to the craggy rocks of the beach, not even breaking stride as he plunged into the water.

The ocean was black and cold as death. His body rebelled against the terrible shock, but he forced his limbs into a jerky doggy paddle. He had no idea how far away the English coast was, or how long he'd last in the water, but he was beyond caring. He would swim until he couldn't swim any longer. And if the ocean swallowed him up, well, that wouldn't be so bad.

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><p>It had been a bad month for Remus Lupin. One moment they'd been at war, but happy. He had his friends, who were like his family, and it was dangerous for everyone but they were fighting back. The next moment, James and Peter were dead and Sirius was a traitor, a murderer, and in Azkaban for life. The three people he cared about most in the world were gone in one fell swoop.<p>

Ever since that black Halloween, the wizarding world had been rocked by cataclysmic shifts. Dozens of Death Eaters rounded up in the wake of Voldemort's defeat. Dozens more shaking off the chains of the Imperius Curse at long last – or pretending to. Ministry workers reassigned, businesses reopening. The Order was gone, disbanded. And Remus Lupin somehow fell through the cracks. He was lost at sea. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out what to _do_. He wandered around his small flat and walked the streets of Muggle London waiting for his grief to make itself understandable to him.

He finally started sobbing one day over a t-shirt that James had gotten him for his birthday. It was black and red, and it had a picture of a grinning wolf with its tongue out. The caption under the picture said _Werewolves Do It Monthly_. He watched himself, as if from outside his body, gripping the shirt and soaking it with tears and he almost laughed at the absurdity of it.

James had gotten that shirt for him when he turned seventeen. That was three years ago. Remus Lupin was twenty years old and felt much, much older.

News of the attack on the Longbottoms, Sirius's escape from Azkaban, and the balled-up note all hit him at approximately the same time. Remus was sitting on the front steps of his flat, bravely chasing back the winter chill with a nice cup of tea, when a delivery own dropped a copy of the _Daily Prophet _in his lap. He stuck five Knuts in the owl's pouch, and then unrolled the paper only to find his former best friend's face splashed across the front page.

Below the fold were pictures of the Longbottoms. Remus's eyes scanned the page, his tea long forgotten, his hands clenching the newspaper in anger. He was just working himself into a good, old-fashioned murderous rage when the balled up piece of parchment hit him in the face. He blinked as it softly fell into his lap, only to magically smooth itself out, slide up his arm, and fold itself into his sleeve.

In less than a second, Remus was on his feet, wand out. The spell was one James had invented so the Gryffindor quartet could pass notes in class. Only two living people knew it, now, and if Remus had his way, soon there would be just one.

"SIRIUS!" he bellowed, his anger overriding good sense as he charged into the street, looking around wildly. "Come for me too, have you? Want to make a clean sweep of it? Come on, then, and try me! I promise, I'll put you down like the traitorous mongrel you are!"

He was breathing heavily as he spun in a circle, trying to look everywhere at once. After a few seconds it was clear that his ex-best friend wasn't going to make an appearance, and Remus retreated back to the steps of his flat. His anger had simmered down to a dull roar, and was being replaced with a healthy dose of guilt. The _Prophet _had emphasized the unprecedented nature of Sirius's escape from Azkaban, noting that not a single wizard or witch had escaped the island prison in the last hundred years. The article went on to almost gleefully theorize about what kind of Dark powers Sirius possessed, and how dangerous he might be to the average family.

_Good for them. Now that Voldemort's been gone a month, they were running out of ways to scare people. I'm sure this will drum up some business, _thought Remus sardonically.

The twisted smile slipped off his face. The paper also speculated about the exact means Sirius had used to escape, each theory more wild than the next.

Remus was pretty sure he knew how Sirius had done it.

He'd thought about coming clean a month ago when Sirius was tossed into Azkaban. Even written the letter to his former Headmaster. But he couldn't do it. Telling Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus meant admitting that Remus had betrayed Dumbldore's trust in letting him come to Hogwarts. It meant telling the person who'd opened the doors of Europe's most prestigious magical school to a werewolf that instead of keeping himself safe during the full moon, he'd been roaming the halls at night, putting children at risk because he was so selfishly happy to have real friends.

The piece of parchment in his sleeve rustled against his forearm, poking him, breaking him out of his reverie. He slowly drew it out and unrolled it. The handwriting was a familiar scrawl, and the words did nothing to help his fragile emotional control.

_Moony,_

_It wasn't me. I convinced Prongs to switch at the last second. I thought it was clever. Wormtail was the Secret-Keeper. I went after him, he got the drop on me, blew up the street and transformed. At least I think he did. I was pretty out of it. I woke up in Azkaban. If there was a trial, I don't remember it._

_I escaped when I heard what happened to Frank and Alice. I'm not asking you to trust me – James and I didn't trust you enough to tell you about the switch. Couldn't be sure it wasn't you leaking information to Voldemort. Knew it had to be someone close. Sorry about that. Never thought Peter had the stones for it. _

_Look, I can't prove anything I'm saying. But if even a tiny shred of you believes me, then I trust you figure out a way I can convince you. I'll be honest, I feel about as smart as a flobberworm right now. Reckon an extended stay at Chateau Azkaban has that effect on people. But just like always, I'm going to jump into trouble and count on my friend to get me out of it._

_I'll be at the place in the Forest where we used to howl at the moon. I'd say 'come alone', but I'm in no position to be setting terms._

_If you show up with a Hit Wizard squad I'll try not to hold it against you._

_-Padfoot_

Remus clenched the letter in his fist and closed his eyes.

It seemed his month of depression and inaction was about to end… one way or another.

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><p>Sirius paced back and forth on the bare rock. The clearing in the Forbidden Forest was unremarkable except for the several-meter wide stone, perfectly circular and almost white, buried in the ground. They'd found it in fifth year, when the novelty of their new Animagus forms was enough and they'd simply romped around the Forest, exploring. Remus had thought the rock must have been magical because of its unnatural symmetry, and they'd even sneaked out of the castle during the day to go back and test it, but they'd never found evidence that it was more than a rock.<p>

Even if it wasn't magical, it did make a fairly excellent spot to pose dramatically during a full moon and let loose a wolf and/or dog howl.

The wind clattered through the branches of the leafless trees surrounding the clearing. Winter in Scotland had never been pleasant. Sirius drew his rags closer to his body, shuddering. He absently flicked his stolen wand, re-casting the Warming Charm around his body, though it helped little. The wand was a poor match, but it was better than nothing and he'd been lucky to nick it at all.

Sirius heard a low, muffled _crack _behind him, and he whirled around, managing to spot the outline of three figures before he was knocked off his feet by a brilliant, blinding white light.

He hit the rock hard, and spat out a mouthful of blood as he rose and slowly raised his hands, shaking the spots from his vision until he could make out the three people in front of him.

Albus Dumbledore looked as serene and implacable as ever, his majestic white beard gently swaying in the breeze. He had an unreadable but calm look on his face as he pointed his wand unwaveringly at Sirius. Belatedly, he realized that his own pilfered wand was resting comfortably in Albus's off-hand.

Remus Lupin was staring at Sirius with a look of such raw emotion and pain that it was all he could do not to rush over to him and embrace him in a manly hug.

The third man…

"What's _he _doing here?" asked Sirius, scowling.

Severus Snape regarded Sirius with his customary sneer, supremely unconcerned, his wand not even in his hand, looking, thought Sirius viciously, like he was a child hiding behind Dumbledore's robes.

"You asked me to figure out a way to believe you," said Remus, his voice cool and his face rearranging itself into a semblance of controlled detachment. "This is the way."

Sirius took an unconscious step back as Snape stepped forward, his hand plunging into his robes and coming up with a bottle of clear liquid.

"I'm not drinking anything from _him_," said Sirius, almost petulantly.

Dumbledore lowered his wand. "If you wish us to believe your rather incredible tale, we will require some proof as to the veracity of your claims."

"He wants to poison me," said Sirius, pointing at Snape.

"How perceptive," said Snape in that silky smooth voice. Sirius had forgotten how much the greasy git rubbed him the wrong way. "If you are responsible for the crimes you're accused of, as I'm quite sure that you are, it will be my very great pleasure to make sure your death is a painful one."

Sirius blinked. He'd never known Snape to particularly care for innocent lives, and certainly not the lives of Muggles. He'd hated James with a passion, and given their rather public falling out, he wasn't likely to have shed any tears for his one-time friend Lily Evans. The Order had him high on their list of suspected Death Eaters. So why was Snape looking at Sirius, who at this point was suspected of being everything Snape aspired to – like he'd strangled his puppy?

Sirius turned to Remus. "You trust him? After everything?"

Remus hesitated. "I trust Dumbledore. Dumbledore trusts him."

Snape swept forward and unscrewed the vial. "Enough of this. We're not the ones on trial here, Black. Drink, or you will be forced to."

Sirius looked at Dumbledore, who had stayed back, unmoving and impassive. "It's not reliable, you know. Veritaserum can be resisted. You must know that was part of Auror training."

"As the former Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, I do have a passing familiarity with the Auror department," said Dumbledore. "However, this particular batch was made by Severus himself, who, though you may find a trifle challenging to get along with, is a rather excellent Potions master."

Sirius hesitated as Snape held out a dropper well away from his body, as if he found the very concept of standing near Sirius to be distasteful. "I just want to make sure you've considered all the angles," he said. "When I tell you the truth, I want you to believe me."

Dumbledore nodded, stroking his beard. "Talented as you may be, Sirius, the combination of the potion along with my own observations will be sufficient, I believe. I am," he continued modestly, "a rather skilled Legilimens, after all."

Sirius took a deep breath, prepared to take the potion, but then pulled up short. "Did you say _former _Chief Warlock? What exactly – "

Dumbledore waved his hand dismissively. "As fascinating a story as my abrupt dismissal from the Wizengamot is, I'm afraid it must wait until you tell your own tale, Sirius "

Sirius huffed. "Fine, let's get this over with." He stuck out his tongue at Snape, who distastefully but carefully measured out three drops of Veritaserum onto it. All three men watched closely as Sirius closed his mouth and swallowed.

Immediately, he felt the potion's tendrils hook into his mind, wrapping around his thoughts and closing off all paths but the truth. He suppressed his instinctual response and let the effusive feeling of calm acceptance wash over him.

Dumbledore scrutinized him for a few long moments, then nodded to Remus.

Remus took a deep breath. "What is your name?"

Sirius felt the words flow from his lips. "Sirius Lycoris Black the Third."

Snape laughed. "What a perfectly ridiculous name."

Remus paid no attention and continued his questions. "From where did your middle name originate?"

"My great-aunt Lycoris Black," said Sirius.

"And why aren't you fond of that name?" asked Remus

Sirius bit his tongue, but the potion had him in its grip. "Because my cousin Narcissa dressed me up in girl's clothes and made me call myself Lycoris."

Snape looked like Christmas had come early.

Dumbledore stroked his beard again, his eyes merry. "I believe that proves the potion's efficacy. I do not believe Sirius would reveal that information in Severus's presence of his own volition." His merriment fell away and he regarded Sirius soberly. "Were you the Secret-Keeper for James and Lily Potter?"

"No," said Sirius clearly and evenly.

"Who was?"

"Peter Pettigrew."

Dumbledore leaned forward, very intent on Sirius. "Why did you choose to keep this information to yourself?"

At this, Sirius tensed up. He couldn't fight the potion completely, but he could be a bit…choosy when the question was as broad as that. "We wanted everyone to think that I was the Secret-Keeper. We knew someone was leaking information, so only the people involved in the ruse knew about it."

Snape pounced on that like a bat on a mosquito. "He's lying, Dumbledore! I can tell."

"Not lying, Severus," said Dumbledore calmly. "Merely telling only a portion of the truth. Sirius, why didn't you tell _me_ the plan?"

Sirius felt the truth spill from his lips. "James didn't trust you, Albus. Something happened after you told them to go into hiding. They never told me what it was, but they learned something, and after that they were very careful around you. I asked James about it once, and he told me that it had something to do with why they went into hiding. Whatever reason you gave them for why you thought Voldemort was after them, they found out that you'd lied about it, or held something back, or deliberately twisted the truth, something like that."

Dumbledore had a pensive, faraway look in his eyes. "I see. That makes things… complicated."

Remus stepped forward and fixed Sirius with a piercing stare, ignoring Dumbledore. "How did you escape Azkaban?"

"They didn't feed me well. I transformed into Padfoot and I was skinny enough to fit through the bars. The Dementors couldn't find me. I swam to the coast."

"Why did you escape?"

"I saw them bring in Bellatrix and her friends. Heard what happened to Frank and Alice. Knew I had to protect Harry."

Remus studied Sirius for several long seconds. Then he turned to Dumbledore. "I believe him. I think he's telling the truth. Give him the antidote."

Dumbledore was still looking into the middle distance, and it took a moment for Remus's words to register. "I concur, Remus. Severus, please give Sirius the antidote."

Snape stepped forward, but Sirius waved him off. "No need. It's worn off enough that I can fight it." He regarded Snape, looking at him frankly. "Your hair isn't greasy at all, and I really, really respect you." He grinned toothily.

Dumbledore coughed politely, perhaps covering a smile as Snape glowered. Sirius ignored them and turned to Remus, a hopeful, almost shy grin on his face. "So you really believe me?"

"I believe you," said Remus.

They stepped forward as one and embraced, clutching each other tightly. "Sorry," they both muttered at the same instant.

As they parted, Sirius found that his voice was a bit hoarse as he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders. "So now that that's over with, how about some answers?"

Dumbledore still seemed distracted by something, but at Sirius's words, he shook his head, clearing out the cobwebs, and nodded decisively. "Yes. Perhaps that would be best. We have much to discuss, and much to plan, and little time to do it. I suggest we all make ourselves comfortable."

Sirius was about to interject that he couldn't exactly get comfortable while shivering against the wind on a slab of rock in the Forbidden Forest, but his words died in his throat as Dumbledore lazily waved his wand and the sound of the wind was muted down to a low rustling, while at the same time the air around them heated itself all the way up to comfortable. With a sharp flick of his wand, Dumbledore conjured four squashy chintz armchairs. He was sitting down before he even finished the wand motion, settling into the chair without even confirming its existence. Even with so many other pressing concerns, Sirius couldn't help but admire Dumbledore's casual mastery of magic.

"So," said Sirius as he plopped himself down on a chair. "_Former _Chief Warlock? Just how long have I been in Azkaban?"

"Thirty-six…hmm," Dumbledore snapped open his pocket watch, glancing at the bizarre configuration of planets and multitude of hands. "Thirty-seven days."

Sirius shuddered. "Felt longer."

"Indeed. Azkaban is a terrible place, and I am sincerely sorry that you suffered it unjustly." Dumbledore snapped his watch closed, forestalling Sirius's objection. "And before you ask, Sirius, I had nothing to do with your lack of trial. The Council of Magical Law has, under the leadership of Bartemius Crouch, taken sole responsibility for all Death Eater trials. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement has been rather…ardent…in their pursuit of justice, and given my reputation, I felt it wise not to oppose Bartemius."

"Anything less than full-throated support of the Ministry hasn't been tolerated this last month," said Remus. "People are feeling very patriotic now that we've won. Although, with Crouch's son exposed as a Death Eater, it's all shot to hell again. I honestly don't know how people are going to take that."

"As if it matters," said Snape, waving his hand contemptuously. "The Ministry will no doubt reorganize itself into a fascinating new configuration of the same mediocrity and incompetence. Crouch is nothing."

"On the contrary," said Dumbledore quietly, "Bartemius is a man of strong conviction, and though the Minister's position is beyond his reach now, he is not a man to be written off. If and when Voldemort returns, he has the potential to be a powerful ally, or a difficult roadblock."

Sirius's knuckles went white as he clutched the armchair. "He's not dead, then? I heard a few rumors in Azkaban, but nothing concrete."

Remus shifted nervously. "Everyone's acting like he's dead, but no one's really confirming it. People talk about him being gone, or defeated, or banished. But no one's actually saying he's dead. The one thing that's generally agreed upon is that they didn't find a body."

Sirius turned to Dumbledore for confirmation.

"Indeed," said Dumbledore. He arched an eyebrow at Sirius. "Though, from my understanding, it was you who was 'first on the scene,' as the Muggles would say. You didn't by chance notice a very dead Lord Voldemort, did you?"

Sirius closed his eyes, flashes of memory assaulting his senses. He hadn't heard from Peter in a few days, and he'd felt unsettled. He'd known right away that something was wrong when he'd gone to the Potters and hadn't felt that characteristic dragging sensation of Apparating through a Fidelius Charm. The images from inside the house would be imprinted in his mind forever. James had died violently, his body battered and bloody, but it was Lily who would haunt Sirius's nightmares. She was there, in that ruined room, splayed out on the floor, not a mark on her, little Harry's crying a flood on his senses. Her expression was terrible to behold. Her last moments frozen on her face – fear, rage, fierce love. Her eyes were wide open.

He'd picked up Harry, knelt over Lily, looked around the room, and…

"There was no body," said Sirius, his voice shaking a little. "It was just…just Lily and Harry."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "Not even a wand? A pile of robes, perhaps?"

Sirius shook his head. "No, nothing. I was pretty shaken up, and the nursery looked like someone tossed an overpowered _bombarda _into the south wall, but I would have noticed anything that looked like Voldemort's remains. There was a lot of magic, though. The air was practically saturated with it. I didn't have time to delve into that, though. Harry was crying, and bleeding…" At this, he hesitated.

Dumbledore took his meaning. "I assure you, Sirius, Harry is quite safe."

Sirius relaxed, but not all the way. "Good. But… what _happened_, Albus? After I escaped, I snuck into a pub in Dover, figured I could nick a wand. Thought it would be easier to try on someone who was already three sheets to the wind. And then I heard some people toasting Harry Potter. Saying how he'd beat You-Know-Who." Sirius shook his head, his long, dark hair falling into his face. "Is my godson a folk hero at age one?"

Remus winced. "Hagrid wasn't very discreet. He told the Hit Wizards who showed up at the Potters after you'd left, and then a pub full of people later that night, and it kind of snowballed from there. It's common knowledge. I doubt there's a wizard in Great Britain who hasn't heard the story."

"But what _is _the story?" said Sirius, blinking rapidly. He was feeling foggy, and things weren't adding up for him, but he couldn't tell how much of that was the situation and how much the aftereffects of Azkaban.

"It's pretty vague," said Remus, shrugging. "Voldemort went to the Potters, killed James and Lily, turned his wand on Harry, and somehow couldn't kill him. The curse backfired."

Sirius gaped. "And people just _accept _that? That makes sense to people?"

"People are fools," said Snape waspishly. "They'll not look too hard at their good fortune. They'd believe the Potter child was a time-traveling Merlin if it meant the Dark Lord was gone."

"But he is not gone," said Dumbledore, his quiet voice nonetheless commanding attention. "And there is at least one Death Eater free and striving for his return. I'm afraid what Sirius saw proves that."

"Proves it how?" asked Sirius.

"There was powerful magic at work that night," said Dumbledore grimly. "Old magic. We may never know for certain exactly why young Harry survived, but Lily's death was no accident; she chose it, and her sacrifice proved to be a truly powerful protection. The Killing Curse did indeed backfire – instead of leaving the body and destroying the soul, it did the opposite. Voldemort's body was destroyed, but his soul remains. He lingers, even now, with less presence and ability to affect the world than the most pitiful spirit, but here nonetheless."

Remus looked thoughtful, and Snape wore a hooded, guarded look. "But… how is that possible?" asked Sirius. "If Voldemort's body was destroyed, how can he still be around? How can the soul exist without the body?"

"How indeed?" said Dumbledore. That faraway, pensive look was back. "I fear the answer to that question may be of some importance in the future, and rather sooner than we'd wish. The Dark Marks on the captured Death Eaters tell us that. Faded, yes, but not collapsed. The Mark is a complex bit of soul magic. Tom always had a knack for such things." Dumbledore lapsed into a wistful silence.

Sirius licked his lips. Dumbledore was being cagey. "Albus. What do you know? You must have some reason to believe he's not dead beyond what you've said. You wouldn't base your reasoning on how faded a tattoo is. Not just that, anyway. You know something else. You have to."

"I know many things, Sirius," said Dumbledore, his hands clasped in front of him. "But despite rumors to the contrary, I am not even slightly omniscient."

Sirius slumped despondently. "Please, Albus. Think of what secrets have just cost us."

There was something in Sirius's voice that made Dumbledore look at him, then. A steady, calculating gaze that seemed to take the measure of him, deep down.

"You are quite right, Sirius," said Dumbledore, and Snape stirred in his chair, looking like he might interrupt, but Dumbledore's next words quieted him down. "I must beg your forgiveness, however. Some secrets are not mine to tell. Suffice to say that I believe quite strongly that Voldemort will rise again, that he will seek Harry Potter's death again, and that we must do all in our power to oppose him."

Something about Dumbledore's words tickled at the back of Sirius's mind, but his overtaxed brain was unable to make the connection.

Sirius was on the verge of protesting, but Remus leaned forward and shook his head, catching Sirius's eye. _Now is not the time_, said his unspoken look. The werewolf turned to Dumbledore and asked, "You said something about there being a Death Eater trying to bring him back?"

"Indeed," said Dumbledore. He stood up, lazily banishing the chair, and began pacing. Sirius was immediately reminded of the many Order meetings he'd attended, Dumbledore thinking out loud, pacing just like that. "Voldemort's missing body may be accounted for by the unique circumstances of the backfiring Killing Curse, but for his wand to be gone as well…"

"Peter," said Sirius, straightening up, his voice dropping to a monotone. "It had to be."

"That was my conclusion as well," said Dumbledore. "And I fear tracking him down will be quite challenging, especially given the revelation of his Animagus form."

"He probably ran to the nearest master that would take him," said Sirius nastily. "We should check the Malfoys. He's probably licking Lucius's boot as we speak."

"The Malfoys have been exonerated, Black," said Snape. "Unwilling victims of the Imperius Curse. Did no one bother to tell you while you were chained up?"

"Unwilling my saggy left – " Sirius was quickly Silenced by Dumbledore with a quick flick of his wand.

"I suggest we keep this discussion civil," he said mildly.

"Pettigrew would find a cold welcome with the Malfoys, in any case," said Snape, clearly enjoying the furious but silent looks Sirius was giving him, combined with a few violent hand gestures conveying something anatomically impossible. "The Dark Lord's _former _followers are very…displeased… with the one whom they view as being responsible for his downfall."

"So he ran," said Remus, looking out into the Forest, the hundreds of dark trees swaying in the muted breeze. "He could be anywhere by now. Absolutely anywhere."

"It is imperative that we find him, nonetheless," said Dumbledore. "Even such a relatively unassuming wizard as Peter Pettigrew would be a powerful ally given sufficient commitment."

"Which he has," said Remus grimly. "There's nothing else left for him now." He leaned forward in his chair. "It's going to have to be Sirius and me, isn't it?"

"Don't be absurd," said Snape, scoffing. "A werewolf and an escaped convict, traipsing around Europe looking for a rat?"

"I hate to agree with _Snivellus_," said Sirius, finally breaking through the Silencing Charm, "but he's right. It sounds like the start of a bad joke."

"No, it has to be," said Remus, lost in thought. "Sirius, you missed a lot. The Order's all but disbanded. James and Lily gone, Frank and Alice…" he trailed off, looking down.

"I heard about that," said Sirius, a glum look crossing his face. He looked up at Dumbledore. "Is there really no hope?"

"There is always hope," said Dumbledore. "Alas, in this case I fear that hope will be in vain."

"You could have just said no," muttered Sirius.

"It's an old man's privilege to dispense inscrutable wisdom," said Dumbledore mildly.

Sirius was opening his mouth for a rejoinder, but Remus cut him off. "Sirius, they kicked him out of the Wizengamot. And it's six to five and pick 'em whether or not he's still Headmaster by this time tomorrow."

Sirius blinked, completely nonplussed. "What? Who…? I mean, why…?"

"Articulate as always, Black," said Snape.

"When the Aurors got to the Longbottoms, they swept the house for clues trying to track down the people responsible," said Remus. "Obviously they succeeded, but they found something else, too. Alice's diary." Dumbledore sighed heavily, and stopped pacing. Remus looked up at him almost nervously, but continued. "She was always a little leery of some of what the Order did. She was a good soldier, always went along with it, but she kept a diary that was very critical of some of the Order's more… ethically pragmatic actions."

Sirius's overtaxed mind whirled as he flashed back to the darkest days of the war. The Order hadn't always had the luxury of playing nice. He scratched his unkempt beard. "Let me guess. That dust-up in Wakefield?"

"And the altercation with the goblins in Ashford," said Remus grimly. "But what really made a dog's dinner of it was Alice ranting about that absolute cock-up in Glasgow."

"Bad business, that," said Sirius, looking down. And it had been. The fog hadn't helped, or the dark, or the fact that they'd gotten their wires crossed somewhere along the way and ended up in a three-way pitched battle with Death Eaters and Aurors.

"Yes, it was," said Remus. "And it looked worse from the outside. The Aurors didn't know we were there for Jugson, so when we nabbed him it looked like we were helping the Death Eaters escape. Doge covering our retreat certainly didn't help; he wasn't too picky who he cursed. And we did leave the Aurors there, and not all of them made it back, including a close friend of Alice's."

"Jugson had information we believed vital to the war effort," said Dumbledore, who stood still as a statue, his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the sky. "Information that directly led to preventing dozens of deaths."

"I know that, and you know that, but most people don't know that," said Sirius. "You have to admit, there are a couple sides to this. And now that the public knows Alice's side…" he trailed off.

"They seem quite unwilling to forgive and forget," said Dumbledore. "An altogether unsurprising development, considering my role in Gellert's rise and fall. I had hoped that my years of faithful public service might have restored some of my rather tarnished reputation, but it was not to be. Alice's diary had some scathing words for Minister Bagnold's handling of the Auror Office as well, and though nothing is certain at this point, the Minister may be forced out of office as well. She and I have never had the most pleasant working relationship, and I fear her attitude at this point is decidedly of the 'if I'm going down, I'm taking you with me,' nature. In the past few days, she's been the architect of a series of articles calling for my dismissal from my various positions."

"That's…a big deal," said Sirius, trying to process the idea of a Wizarding Britain without Albus Dumbledore.

"Again, your mastery of the English language astounds me, Black," said Snape. "With Dumbledore effectively cut out of the government, and more likely than not gone from Hogwarts, the consequences will be far-reaching and unknowable."

Dumbledore turned around, his gaze intense. "Which is why we must move quickly. Sirius, you and Remus must track down Peter, starting tonight, if possible. The longer you dally, the colder the trail gets. Logically, starting the search in England makes the most sense, and as Severus pointed out, England may well soon be out of my sphere of influence."

Caught up in his energy, Sirius stood, as did the others, and Dumbledore banished the rest of the armchairs.

"Not that I think it's a good idea," said Remus cautiously as he stood up, "but is Severus coming with us?"

"Absolutely not," said Sirius and Snape at the same time. They each turned and shot each other a scowl.

"Severus is needed elsewhere," said Dumbledore. "One of my final acts as Headmaster may have been his appointment as the new professor of Potions."

"Well, that sucks for Potions," muttered Sirius.

Snape looked all set to counter that with a sneer and a cutting comment, but Dumbledore swept into motion. "Let us return to Hogsmeade. My brother can provide the two of you with provisions, as well as a safe place to stay the night."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Aberforth still owns the Hog's Head? I thought he gave that up when he started teaching."

"Keeping his inn was one of several rather…unique… conditions that my brother insisted on before he took the Care of Magical Creatures position," said Dumbledore distractedly as he looked Sirius over. "Remus, perhaps you should Side-Along Sirius to Hogsmeade. You look a bit worse for wear, Sirius."

Remus nodded, moving to take Sirius's arm, but Sirius again stopped them with a word. "Harry. Where is he?"

"Safe," replied Dumbledore, his voice betraying a hint of impatience. "As I said."

"Let me try that again, Albus," said Sirius. He seemed to shed his tiredness as he stood up straight. "Where is _my godson_? Because I'm not going anywhere until I'm sure he's okay. If tracking Peter is that important, I'll do it, and until I can clear my name I can't exactly raise him as an escaped convict, but I _will _do everything in my power to make sure he's safe and happy."

Dumbledore seemed to study Sirius for a moment. "I placed Harry with the only family he has left," he said at last. "Lily's sister Petunia and her husband will raise the boy."

"No!" Sirius and Snape shot each other a look as they spoke at the same time once again, surprised and almost offended by their mutual agreement.

"How could you do that?" said Sirius, aghast. "Lily's sister is a horrid woman. James told me all about her. She's not fit to raise a _houseplant_, much less James's son."

"The Dursleys are thoroughly Muggle and quite unpleasant, but they are Harry's last living blood relatives," said Dumbledore amicably, quite calm in the face of Sirius's obvious fury and Snape's subtler, cold rage.

"Petunia is more than merely unpleasant, Headmaster," said Snape. "She's a foul, noxious woman of limited intelligence and limitless pettiness."

"What do you care, anyway?" asked Sirius, twisting to fix Snape with a suspicious glare.

"I don't, Black," snapped Snape. "The brat could be raised by wolves, for all I care. I was merely expressing my opinion of Petunia."

Abruptly, Sirius noticed that Snape was not his usual cold, sneering self. He had those elements, to be sure, but his emotions were much closer to the surface than usual, and behind his icy demeanor, there was a hint of something…raw. An open wound.

"Regardless of Petunia's character," said Dumbledore, raising his hands in a placating gesture, "young Harry must reside in her home. The protection against Voldemort that Lily's sacrifice engendered was blood magic. Familial magic. As such, it lives on in Petunia. Her taking Harry into her home, however reluctantly, sealed the charm I placed upon him. While he calls that place home, it is the safest in the world for him."

"From Voldemort, maybe," said Sirius, turning away from his contemplation of Snape's odd behavior to growl at Dumbledore. "Not from being raised by a vicious, horse-faced shrew and her fat, loudmouth husband."

"Would you rather I had placed him with a loving family, close friends of the Potters, such as Frank and Alice?" asked Dumbledore quietly.

That was enough to bring Sirius up short. He shuddered. "Fine. I get your point. But someone has to look out for him. There's got to be some oversight, someone looking out for Harry's interests."

Dumbledore glanced speculatively at Snape. "Perhaps…"

Sirius's eyes nearly fell out of his head, and Remus looked a little ill, but it was Snape himself who reacted most strongly.

Snape laughed. It was an unhinged, bitter, ugly laugh. "Oh, yes, a splendid idea, Headmaster." He leaned over, as if talking to a child. "Hello, Potter brat, I'm Professor Snape. Magic is real. You can conjure a pretty bunny rabbit, but you can also rip the memories from someone, compel them to strangle themselves with their own intestines, make them forget their own name, give them a potion to twist their outsides into a different gender, confront them with a creature that turns into their worst nightmare, or simply kill them with a flick of the wrist and two words. It's also quite possible to make promises that will kill you if you break them, or spark a duel to the death over something you don't understand."

Dumbledore sighed. "Perhaps not."

Sirius was taking deep, calming breaths. "Definitely not."

Remus went to Sirius's side, putting a hand on his shoulder. "We all want Harry to be safe and happy. We just need to figure out a way to do that."

Sirius looked around, holding the gaze of the other three men. He was mentally and physically exhausted, half-starved, cold, and an emotional wreck. It had been a long night, and it was about to get longer. He squared his shoulders.

"I'll tell you what we're going to do."

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><p><strong>Leave a review on your way out; it's what all the cool kids are doing...<strong>


	2. Chapter 1 - The Mirror

**Author's Notes:**

**- Full summary for this story is in my profile. If you just want the highlights, the main "points of diversion" are that Ariana lived, that Sirius Black escaped Azkaban when he overheard what happened to the Longbottoms, and that Harry was born 1 year earlier than in canon.**

_Last updated: 12/5/14  
><em>

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><p><strong>Chapter 1 – The Mirror<strong>

Harry Potter sat on a bench in King's Cross and thought about breakfast.

The crowds of people swirled around him, thankfully ignoring the small boy with the large trunk and the owl in the cage. The Dursleys had been eager to get rid of him and head to the hospital for Dudley's procedure, so they'd dropped him off in the cold light of dawn, hours before the scheduled departure of the Hogwarts Express, a train that was set to take him to something grand and huge and life-altering.

A magic castle, a life free from the Dursleys, a vault full of gold, a scar people wouldn't stop staring at, and a wand that was somehow connected to the evil wizard who'd murdered his parents. It was, reflected Harry, quite enough to be going on with. So why couldn't he stop thinking about the breakfast he'd cooked that morning?

It hadn't been an unusual breakfast – quite the opposite, in fact. But there was something about the memory that struck him as important. Standing there in the kitchen in Dudley's oversized clothes, the tile floor chilling his feet, quickly and efficiently toasting bread and frying eggs like he'd done a thousand times before… and yet, his mind wouldn't stop fixating on it.

_This would be easier to figure out if it weren't so noisy, _thought Harry. King's Cross was bustling with activity as the morning commute filled the station. No one spared him a passing glance, which suited Harry just fine. He'd been more unnerved than he'd like to admit by his first exposure to the wizarding world; a bunch of strangers crowding him and touching him in the Leaky Cauldron wasn't exactly relaxing, and Hagrid's whirlwind tour of Diagon Alley had raised more questions than it'd answered.

"What do you think, Hedwig? Should we try to find somewhere else to sit?" Harry had gotten into the habit of talking to the snowy owl during the long month between his trip to Diagon Alley and the start of term, a time when the Dursleys had studiously ignored his existence. It would have been slightly pathetic, but he'd gotten the strangest feeling that Hedwig was actually listening to him, and after a few weeks he was surprised and more than a little depressed to realize the owl was quite literally the best friend he'd ever had.

Hedwig ruffled her feathers and gave him a bleary, flat look.

"Guess we'll stay put," said Harry. He craned his head above the crowd, keeping an eye on the barrier between Platforms 9 and 10. As the clock high on the wall had inched towards the departure time of 11 o'clock, Harry had spotted more and more Hogwarts families – they were pretty easy to pick out based on their dress alone. He figured there must be some kind of magic at work diverting attention from the barrier between platforms, because the Hogwarts people weren't exactly subtle about walking _through _a ticket box.

"Right, then," muttered Harry. He stood up and arranged his luggage cart, repositioning Hedwig's cage on top of his trunk. He hesitated, his excitement tinged with a healthy dose of nervousness. Harry glanced down at his trunk, cracked it open, almost changed his mind, then opened it fully and grabbed something off the top of the disorganized pile of clothes and school supplies.

Hedwig gave him a reproachful look, though Harry wasn't sure if it was for the object he now held in his hand, or for the way she'd been jostled around on top of his trunk as he'd rummaged around inside it.

"Look, it's not a real solution, I know that," he said to her. "I'm not hiding who I am or anything, I just don't want to be mobbed again." With that, he jammed the baseball cap on his head with more confidence than he felt.

The hat had cost him all the money he'd been able to scrounge up over the summer, but it was still the cheapest he'd been able to find within walking distance of King's Cross. It was dark blue and the fabric felt thin and cheap, and it had a cheerful Union Jack emblazoned on the brim, but it was better than nothing.

Harry adjusted the hat, pulling it low, the brim flush with his glasses, making sure his unruly dark hair wasn't poking out too much. Hagrid had mentioned how much he resembled his parents, but everyone in Diagon Alley had seemed to key in on his scar.

_Well, it will either work or it won't, _he thought. Hedwig was still looking at him, and he shifted guiltily on his feet. It wasn't like he was hiding, exactly. He didn't mind being himself, and he didn't mind other people knowing something about his past, but he still hadn't quite worked out how he felt about the fact that an evil wizard had murdered his parents, and having random people shaking his hand, thanking him for not being murdered alongside them wasn't helping, and _bloody hell, he was thinking about breakfast again. _He shook his head. This was getting ridiculous. He glanced up at the clock again. _Might as well get this over with_.

With a deep breath, Harry gave his luggage cart a push, accelerated to a brisk jog, and stepped into another world.

* * *

><p>Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was a riot of noise and steam.<p>

The Hogwarts Express, it turned out, was a regal-looking locomotive painted a sharp green with silver trim. The train was only a backdrop to the chaos, though. Parents and children of every age were everywhere, shouting greetings, saying tearful goodbyes, and lugging trunks onto the train.

Harry navigated through the crowd as best he could. The first few carriages were already filled; in some places students were hanging out the windows to accept last-minute packages from tearful parents. Harry pushed his cart further down the platform, looking for something a bit more sedate.

A few strenuous minutes later, he was sitting comfortably in an empty compartment near the back of the train, his trunk settled into the luggage rack. With no pressing concerns, he looked out the window and watched the crowd.

After a few minutes he noticed something odd. As families kept coming through the barrier, Harry saw a peculiar pattern: a great majority of the parents would glance at the train as they came through the barrier, and then either smile or frown slightly, always at the train itself, and always just for a second, as if not wanting to be too obvious about it.

"What do you make of that, Hedwig? You'd think the parents would have seen the train before." Harry said, making a mental note to cut back on holding long conversations with Hedwig, as 'Boy Who Talks To His Owl All The Time' was only marginally better than 'Boy Who Lived,' as monikers went.

"The train is painted the color of last year's House Cup winners," said a voice coming from behind him. "Slytherin's won five years in a row, and the parents who are former Slytherins or have Slytherin kids are pretty pleased with themselves. Other parents not so much."

Harry quickly turned away from the window to regard the speaker, who was a dark-haired girl around his own age, with a composed, friendly expression and pale, Asian features.

"At least that's what my mum says," said the girl, who looked a little more uncertain as she amended her statement. She hefted her trunk, which she was dragging awkwardly behind her. "Can I sit here? This thing is pretty heavy."

"Sure," said Harry. He got to his feet and helped the girl lift the trunk up to the luggage rack, which was a good thing because it seemed to be about twice as heavy as his own.

"Thanks," said the girl happily as she sat down across from him. "I'm Cho, by the way."

"Harry." He looked back out the window, not really knowing what to say, but, determined to brazen his way through his first real conversation in about a month, he asked, "so are you just starting Hogwarts as well?"

"Yes," said Cho. "I'm chuffed to bits to be here. I've wanted to go to Hogwarts ever since I can remember."

"So you grew up knowing about - " Harry waved his hand, indicating the platform outside the window. " – all this?"

"Of course," said Cho, nonplussed. Then her eyes widened fractionally. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean…" she held up her hands as her voice sped up. "It's not like I have a problem with Muggle-borns."

"I'm not a Muggle-born, or at least I don't think I am," said Harry. "That's kind of what I mean, though. If you don't grow up around all this stuff, it can be pretty confusing, all these new terms and ideas."

Cho bit her lower lip as she frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose that makes sense. I've never really thought about it." She tilted her head. "If you're not a Muggle-born, though, how did you grow up not knowing anything about magic?"

"My parents died when I was very young," said Harry. He winced at Cho's expression, but ploughed on. "I grew up with my aunt and uncle. Living with them is all I can remember, and as far as they were concerned, magic didn't exist."

Cho looked torn between compassion and natural curiosity. "I'm really sorry about your parents, Harry. That's just awful." She was able to hold it in for a few seconds, but then… "But… how come your aunt and uncle didn't tell you anything?"

Harry was saved from answering that particularly thorny question when the compartment door slid open. Three boys near Harry's age stood there, all dragging trunks, looking sweaty but excited.

"Hey, these seats taken?" asked the one who seemed to be the leader. He had an easygoing demeanor and close-cropped brown hair.

"Um…" Cho looked over at Harry surreptitiously. "I guess not," she said when Harry shrugged.

"Great!" said the brown-haired boy. "The train's about to leave and these things aren't getting any lighter." He indicated the trunks.

The other two boys started hauling their trunks inside. One was skinny and blond with a slightly upturned nose. The other was big, with wiry hair and ruddy features and a heavyset face.

The first boy sat next to Harry. "First years?" Harry and Cho both nodded. "Yeah, us too. I met these two on the platform. They were just telling me all about Hogwarts." He stuck out his hand to Harry. "I'm Mike Vaisey, by the way. Everyone calls me Vaisey."

The skinny blond boy was still struggling with his trunk, but turned for a second and muttered, "Zacharias Smith."

"Cormac McLaggen," said the third boy, who reached up and pushed Zacharais's trunk into place with one firm shove. As they settled into their seats, the train let out a shrill whistle and began to move, gathering speed.

"Nice to meet you all," said Cho, looking a bit more reserved than when she'd been talking to Harry. "I'm Cho Chang."

Harry was in the middle of shaking Vaisey's hand. "Harry Potter."

Vaisey's reaction was simply to nod as he shook Harry's hand, but Cho, Cormac, and Zacharias whipped their heads around to stare at Harry.

"Oh…" said Cho, almost to herself, her face lighting up with understanding.

"No way!" Cormac leaned forward, his eyes popping out.

"Really?" said Zacharias doubtfully. "Let's see the scar, then."

Harry frowned at that last statement, but before he could tell Zacharias exactly what he could do with his disbelief, Vaisey released his hand and looked around the compartment. "Uh, sorry, am I supposed to know you?" he asked. "I just got my letter last month, and my parents and I have been playing some catch-up with this whole 'magic being real' thing." He tried cracking a grin, but it faltered as the energy in the compartment didn't get any less tense.

"Uh…" Harry glanced around for help, but the other three were still looking at him like he was some kind of mysterious zoo animal. He half-turned to Hedwig for help before catching himself, then with a mental shrug, turned back to Vaisey. "I guess I'm a bit…famous." He said the word very reluctantly. "You know about Voldemort?"

Cho, Zacharias, and Cormac all flinched, but Vaisey just said, "Yeah, I read something about him when I was picking up my books. He's, like, a terrorist, right? Some nutter who used magic to kill a bunch of people a couple years ago?"

"Bit more to it than that, mate," said Cormac, a bit too smugly for Harry's taste.

Zacharias wore a guarded frown. "Yeah, I'd be careful how you talk about that stuff. And don't say his name. You-Know-You is a pretty touchy subject."

Vaisey nodded soberly. "Er…right. I tend to just say things, don't mind me. Touchy subject, got it. What does Vol – sorry, You-Know-Who, have to do with Harry here?"

"He, um, killed my parents," said Harry.

Vaisey shrugged. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but it sounded like he killed a lot of people's parents." Everyone stared at him, and he blushed faintly.

"Blimey, Vaisey," said Cormac, his expression almost impressed.

"Stupid lack of filter," muttered Vaisey. He turned to Harry with an apologetic grin. "You were saying?"

Harry shrugged. "Not much to tell. Voldemort – " he had to pause as Zacharias and Cormac flinched in their seats, the former giving him a dirty look. " – killed my parents when I was a year old, and then tried to do me in as well, but something happened. The curse didn't work, I got this scar on my forehead, and Voldemort, uh, was gone. And that," he finished rather lamely, "is what happened."

Vaisey scratched his head. "That's awful about your parents. Kind of a stupid story, though."

"Stupid?" said Cho, aghast. She glared at Vaisey. "Harry Potter _defeated You-Know-Who_. He saved everyone. That's not stupid."

Vaisey looked around, apparently undaunted by the three rather hostile looks he was getting from Cho, Zacharias, and Cormac. "What do you mean, defeated?"

"Defeated," said Zacharias as if talking to a much younger child. "As in, gone, no more, vanquished."

"I know what the word means," said Vaisey, showing a bit of irritation for the first time. "But it sounds like everyone knows the story but not what really happened." He turned to Harry. "So did you stand defiantly in front of You-Know-Who, wearing nappies and holding a baby-sized wand? Three inches, balsa wood and unicorn dandruff, slightly chewed?"

Harry grinned, to the surprise of the rest of the compartment.

"Not that I know of," he said. "I don't remember anything, actually. I don't think anyone knows what really happened. I just heard the story last month myself."

"Last _month_?" said Zacharias, his eyebrows climbing his forehead. "You mean you didn't even know who you _were_?"

"Of course I know who I am," said Harry, starting to feel a creeping sense of dislike for the blond. "I've always been Harry Potter, now I just know something about my parents."

Zacharias shook his head, seemingly lost for words.

"Can we see the scar?" said Cormac, leaning forward eagerly.

"That's very rude," snapped Cho.

"No it's not," said Cormac. "I want to see it because it's cool."

"It's not _cool_!" Cho seemed to be getting genuinely upset. "It's where someone tried to _kill _him!"

"I think it's kind of cool." Vaisey raised his hand. "I mean, a scar from someone trying to kill you and failing? That's tough to beat. All I've got is a scar from when my brother whacked me with a post-hole digger. It's pretty wicked, though." He lifted his shirt to demonstrate.

"That _is _wicked," said Cormac, craning his neck to get a good look. "I've got one from when _my _brother bet me I couldn't juggle Mum's good steak knives." He looked down at the thin scar on his forearm almost mournfully. "It's not as cool as yours, though."

"I'm starting to really regret meeting both of you," said Zacharias.

"I think I'm going to get some air," said Harry, standing. Four sets of eyes instantly locked onto him, like they'd forgotten he was there. Harry slid open the compartment door and walked out without a backward glance.

He walked down the length of the train, looking out at the countryside as it sped past. He felt a little numb. _Guess I should have expected that_, he thought sourly. It might have been optimistic, but he'd held on to hope that maybe kids his own age, not having lived through the dark times Hagrid had told him about, wouldn't make as much out of his story as the adults in Diagon Alley. If the scene in the compartment was a sign of things to come, though, he really shouldn't get his hopes up.

He'd been singled out at school his entire life – Dudley had made sure of that – but Harry wasn't sure that trading isolation and insults for impolite questions about his parents and his scar was much of an upgrade. He just didn't get it. Harry tried to imagine what he would have thought if, for some inexplicable reason, the Prime Minster's son had been in his class. Would Harry have treated him any differently? Harry had to really strain the hypothetical to gloss over the fact that Dudley wouldn't have let him get anywhere near the hypothetical kid, but assuming he did, Harry really liked to think it wouldn't have mattered. Why should it? It wasn't like the kid had done anything special.

_So it must be more than that, with me_, thought Harry. _Either that, or everyone else thinks differently than I do._ The problem was he didn't have enough information. A brief tour of Diagon Alley, some well-meaning but rather scattered tidbits of information from Hagrid, and a bunch of books on magical theory and history didn't give him any kind of context for what the wizarding world was actually _like_.

He was just firming up his resolve to learn as much as possible about everything he could in the shortest amount of time when he quite literally stumbled into someone. The other boy was taller, with dark brown hair and bright grey eyes, and was just exiting a compartment. He'd been looking over his shoulder to close the door, and Harry, lost in thought, had barreled into him.

They both stumbled back. "Sorry," muttered Harry.

"No problem," said the other boy. He brushed off his neatly-pressed jeans and turned to make sure the compartment door was closed behind him.

There was no one else in the train hallway, and Harry, having no particular aim at the moment, leaned against one of the walls. The other boy didn't seem to be paying attention to Harry at all, but he didn't leave, either, instead copying Harry's move, leaning against the opposite wall and crossing his arms.

"So what are you doing out here, anyway?" asked the boy abruptly.

"I just needed a minute. Things were getting a little tense in my compartment."

The boy blinked. "A little early for that kind of drama, isn't it? I mean you're a first year – I don't recognize you, anyway. What could have happened to make you storm out of a compartment?"

"I didn't _storm_ out," said Harry irritably. "I just exited a situation that no longer interested me."

"So you said things like that, I gather."

Harry fought down a smile as he took off his hat. He wasn't quite sure why he did it, but he pushed aside his hair, making his scar eminently visible.

The other boy's eyes flicked to the scar, then he nodded thoughtfully. "Huh. I'd heard he was starting this year."

"In this case, _he _is me."

"Well, not really, though," said the boy. "I mean, who knows what Harry Potter is actually like? I mean, there's the story, and then there's some kid who might be any kind of person."

Harry gaped at him. He certainly hadn't expected _that_. He'd been so prepared for all kinds of unpleasant reactions to his name that the one thing he wasn't ready for was calm understanding.

"I'm Cedric, by the way," said the boy, sticking out his hand. "Cedric Diggory."

Harry took it slowly. "Harry Potter."

"Well, we'll see about that, won't we?" grinned Cedric. Harry grinned right back, and they released each other's hand, sharing a moment of surprisingly companionable silence.

"So, why are _you _out here?" asked Harry after a minute.

"No real reason," said Cedric, shrugging. "Nothing as good as your reason, I mean."

Harry just waited, content to let Cedric talk in his own time.

"I'm a second year," said Cedric after a few seconds of silence. "And I should be thrilled to be going back to Hogwarts, but I'm not."

"Why not?" asked Harry, intrigued. The more Cedric talked, the more Harry could see the truth of his words. He seemed cheerful and friendly on the surface, but something about the way he carried himself spoke of a kind of calm apathy that Harry recognized. He knew what it was like to not be excited to be somewhere.

Cedric frowned, deep in thought. "You know, I'm not exactly sure."

"No friends?"

"No, plenty of friends." Cedric threw his thumb over his shoulder at the compartment he'd just vacated. "Or plenty of people I'm friendly with in my year."

"That's not really the same thing."

"I guess," said Cedric absently. "I'm just…missing something. You know, I thought Hogwarts would be more magical than magical, if you get my drift. My friends are fine. The castle is fine. The classes are fine. It would just be nice if I had some…" Cedric trailed off, struggling for words.

"Excitement?" supplied Harry. "Adventure? Really wild things?"

"Yes," said Cedric, snapping his fingers. "That's it exactly. Where did you hear that?"

"Oh, it's from…" Harry frowned. Whatever he'd been about to say, it just… wasn't there. "A book," he finished. Except that wasn't quite right. It _was _from a book, but it was someone's favorite book, a book Harry had read a dozen times and he had _no idea what it was_.

Harry shivered.

It was the most disconcerting thing. It was like trying to remember a dream; he could tell it was there, just out of reach, could even see the shape of it. Reading, turning the pages…but it slipped out of reach.

"…Okay," said Cedric, oblivious to the byplay, but aware that Harry had stopped talking.

"It's just, I forget which book," said Harry. He hesitated, unsure whether or not to tell Cedric about the odd way his memory had been playing with him recently, when the door to the next carriage opened and a tall, somewhat stocky redhead wearing a loose burgundy sweater came in. He was carrying a pouch that clinked as he ambled over to them.

"Hey, Cedric," said the redhead. "Just making the rounds." He held up the bag and jingled it. "Fancy a flutter this year?"

"I'll pass, thanks," said Cedric dryly. He turned to Harry. "Harry, this is…" he trailed off, looking at the redhead expectantly.

The redhead grinned, a look that should have been accompanied by bells and a siren. "George Weasley." He looked at Harry appraisingly. "Say, you wouldn't be interested in getting in on a little pool the lower years have going? It's kind of a Hogwarts tradition."

Cedric coughed politely. "That you started last year."

"I said _kind of_."

"A pool on what?" asked Harry.

"On what happens to the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor," said George briskly. "Hogwarts hasn't been able to keep a steady one for a few decades. Some people say the job's jinxed. A few just retire or quit for some reason, but most of the time there's a pretty spectacular accident. Like last year, when Professor Slinkhard was transfiguring decorations for the end-of-term feast, and Peeves snuck up behind him with that wind horn Muggle gadget – "

"I think it's called an air horn," murmured Cedric.

" – and he's _still _at St. Mungo's with pumpkins for feet, I heard," finished George.

"Huh," said Harry. Several important questions occurred to him, but he found himself asking something else. "How much does it take to get in, and what are the popular picks?"

"Excellent," said George cheerfully. He whipped out a small black book and started flipping through pages. "Let's see, here... 'Poisoned by Snape' is always good odds." He glanced up at Harry. "You might also want to try one of the various forms of creature attack… hang on." His eyes wandered to Harry's forehead. "Are you…?"

"Caught on, have you?" Cedric rolled his eyes.

"_Harry Potter?_" George snapped the book shut as Harry resignedly nodded. "Well, that changes everything. We're going to have to re-figure some of these odds, maybe add a pick or two…"

And, muttering to himself, George walked down the hallway and into the next carriage.

"That was odd," said Harry.

"You don't know the half of it, mate," said Cedric. His lips twitched into a half-smile. "Literally."

"I take it he's a friend of yours?"

"Friend, friendly acquaintance," said Cedric. "We're in the same year but different Houses. He and his twin brother are in Gryffindor, I'm in Hufflepuff."

"Hufflepuff," said Harry. "I kind of thought Hagrid was kidding about that name."

Cedric frowned. "Don't tell me you're one of those kids who thinks Hufflepuffs are a load of duffers before you set one foot inside Hogwarts."

Harry held up his hands, protesting. "Hey, I don't pre-judge. What I know about Hogwarts you could fit on a postcard. A _small _postcard. But you have to admit, you're kind of starting off at a disadvantage with a name like Hufflepuff. Sounds like what a little girl would call her stuffed penguin."

Cedric chuckled, but as he trailed off he fixed Harry with a sober look. "You grew up Muggle, didn't you?"

Harry crossed his arms. "Is that a problem?"

"Not for me, and not for most people. But a lot of Muggle-raised kids make the same mistake when they come to Hogwarts. They see all the differences, all the strange things wizards do, and they immediately start pointing out how daft some of them are compared to Muggles."

"So you're saying I should try not to laugh when people say things like 'Hufflepuff,' or 'Hogwarts,' or 'Fizzing Whizzbee'?"

"Always thought that last one was a bit much, but, yeah, for the most part." Cedric spread his hands. "Look, all I'm saying is that you wouldn't go over to a friend's house and immediately start talking about how your parents' house did things better and had better things. It's just bad manners."

"I don't know, Cedric," said Harry, frowning. "I've never really been a big fan of manners. I'm more of a 'speak the truth and let the chips fall where they may,' kind of guy."

Cedric seemed to consider this, then grinned. "Sounds like this year will be less boring, at least. Just don't say I didn't warn you when you're being pelted by falling chips."

As he finished speaking, there was a loud _bang _as the carriage door opened and a redhead dashed in who looked identical to George Weasley, but with a garish yellow sweater that clashed horribly with his hair instead of a burgundy one.

"George just told me the news!" he exclaimed as he rushed up to them. "Say, Harry, do you think it's likely that a professor demonstrating counter-curses could set off a traumatic flashback that unlocks your hidden powers and makes you accidentally vaporize him?"

"Uh, can't say that I do."

"Well, let me know if you change your mind. There could be good money in it," said the redhead. He turned and noticed Cedric. "Cedric! Good to see you, mate. Still going to try out for Quidditch this term?"

"That's the plan," said Cedric.

"Oh, sorry, Harry. I'm Fred Weasley." The redhead reached out to shake Harry's hand, and Harry took it, feeling like he was caught up in a conversational tornado. "Anyway, must dash. Lee said Terence Higgs is giving him five-to-one that the new Defense professor makes it to Easter."

And with that, he scampered down the hallway and into the next carriage.

"Are they always like that?" asked Harry.

"Pretty much, yeah. The Weasleys are a big family, and I live near them so I've been over a few times. It's a bit… well, it's never quiet, that's for sure."

"And what was that about Quidditch?"

Cedric's eyes widened. "I forgot – you wouldn't know what that was, would you? It's a game, played on broomsticks, and it's loads of fun. Every House has a team."

"How do you play?"

"It's kind of complicated. There's four balls, and – you know what, I'll tell you later. Let's find someplace to sit. It's kind of a longer conversation than standing in a hallway calls for."

What surprised Harry the most was that he didn't doubt it for a moment: at some point, Cedric would tell him about Quidditch. And just like that, Harry felt some of his general apprehension and nervousness about going to school fade away.

"Do you want to check out my compartment?" asked Harry. "It's all new students, and they're probably done freaking out about, you know." He gestured to his forehead.

"Sure, that sounds – " Cedric was interrupted as one of the nearby compartment doors opened, then slammed forcefully shut, a girl moving into the hallway in the intermediate time. She was shorter than Harry, with dark brown eyes and mousey brown hair. She was scowling as she made a rude gesture at someone back in the compartment. Harry and Cedric looked at each other; a shrug, a nod, a question, an answer all in about half a second, then walked over to the girl.

"...stupid, prissy, stuck-up, bigot. And your hair is _awful_!" shouted the girl, scowling at a girl with curly red-blonde hair, still in the compartment.

"Something I can help with, miss?" asked Harry. "Don't worry, I'm a prefect."

Cedric did a double-take, staring hard at Harry, but stayed silent.

The girl was gulping in air for another blast of vitriol, but when she heard Harry and Cedric approach, she turned and fixed Harry with a glare.

"No, you're not. You look like you're nine."

Harry suppressed a scowl. It wasn't _his _fault he hadn't hit a growth spurt, well, ever. He schooled his features into a pleasant grin. "Well, maybe I'm not a prefect, but I do happen to be a prefect-lygood listener."

The girl's eyes narrowed, but her mouth quirked into a smile. "That's not very funny," she said unconvincingly.

"You're not shouting anymore, though," observed Harry. Internally, he experienced a moment of panic. The prefect joke had just…been there. Popped into his head, for no reason he could think of.

"Okay, it was a _little _funny," said the girl.

Cedric craned his neck, looking into the compartment. "That girl seems to be making some pretty emphatic hand gestures at you. Is this going to get ugly?"

"She's all talk," said the girl with a derisive snort.

"What did she do to you, anyway?" asked Harry.

"Oh, Marietta was just saying some very unkind things about Muggle-borns, and she was being so snotty about it that I just wanted to yank her stupid curly hair out. I'm Katie, by the way. Katie Bell."

"Well, Katie, Cedric and I were just about to head back to my compartment, where there's a girl who seems to be okay with Muggle-borns, and has much nicer hair than that one," said Harry, gesturing at Marietta. "You're welcome to join us."

"All right," said Katie, shrugging. "I really was _trying _to make friends, and Mum _did _tell me to work on my temper, but it's so hard when I'm not flying, and it makes me feel better to punch the occasional loudmouth, although usually it's a boy that I have to punch. It's going to be so hard this year, not flying, I might actually _die_. Isn't it so unfair that first years can't bring their brooms? Oh, and who are you, anyway?"

She said the last part to Harry, focusing on him, and Cedric took the opportunity to slowly inch away.

Harry was saved from identifying himself as the carriage door burst open and a redhead who looked exactly like George and Fred Weasley except wearing a very loud lime green sweater walked briskly in, sauntering over to them.

"Ah, Harry, there you are. My brothers were just catching me up. You'll be happy to know that we already have a few bets that you'll challenge the new Defense professor to a duel when you realize that he's not as good a spellcaster as you, and then he'll quit out of embarrassment when you beat him."

Harry closed his eyes. "You do realize I don't know _anything _about magic, right? People can't possibly expect me to be any better or worse than an average first year. That would be wrong on so many levels."

"Well, those are the breaks," grinned the redhead. "And let me add that it's a real honor to make your acquaintance. Eustis Weasley, at your service."

Cedric gave the redhead a flat stare, shaking his head. The redhead just grinned.

"Uh, thank you?" said Harry.

"You're quite welcome. And look! You've attracted your first female admirer." The redhead bowed to Katie. "Ah, well. I suppose it was inevitable. See you later, Harry!" And with that, he practically ran down the hallway and into the next carriage.

Harry turned to Cedric expectantly.

"They're messing with you," said Cedric. "There are only two of them." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I think."

"Let's go to my compartment," said Harry. "If we stay out here too much longer, something _really _weird might happen."

Harry's conception of his compartment as a safe haven of normalcy was dashed when the three of them returned to find Cho and Zacharias sharing identical looks of fascinated nausea as Vaisey and Cormac pontificated on the wonders of Marmite, apparently finding a point of common interest that bridged the gap between Muggle-born and Wizard-born.

Cho sighed when she saw Harry, by all appearances quite relieved to never hear another word of that particular conversation. What threw Harry a little off balance, though, was the snowy owl perched on her wrist. Cho had a sandwich balanced on her knee, and seemed to be in the middle of feeding Hedwig bits of turkey from it.

"Er, sorry, Harry," said Cho. "I wanted to check with you to see if it was okay, but you weren't here, and your owl seemed to be really unhappy in her cage, and she was eyeing my sandwich, and she's so _beautiful_, and she seems to be happy now, I think…" Cho looked at Hedwig, who gave Harry a look of smug superiority.

"It's fine," said Harry. "Just don't feed her too much. She's quite greedy, you know." Hedwig tilted her head, made an indignant whistle-bark sound, and looked like she'd cuff him with her wing if she could be bothered to move at that particular moment.

Harry turned to the rest of the compartment. "Would you guys make some room? I brought a few people."

Cho, who seemed cheered by the addition of Katie, was quick to make room. Introductions were made all around, and after Katie had threatened to punch him in the face for not telling her that he was Harry _Potter_, of all people, the six first-years plus Cedric settled in to talk.

Seven people being just about the number where it's impossible to hold a single conversation, the talk quickly devolved into three or four separate threads. Harry was happy to sit back and listen to Cho tell him about her pet cat she'd left at home because she was afraid her parents would miss him, while also keeping an ear on Katie and the boys as they argued about which House they'd be in.

"Hufflepuff?" said Cormac. "I don't know why anyone would want to get Sorted there."

"I'm in Hufflepuff," said Cedric, looking unruffled. "You could do worse. They're a friendly bunch."

"Yeah, a friendly bunch of _losers_," said Cormac. "First in friendship, fourth in points, that's what my uncle says."

"Excuse me," said Zacharias coldly. "My whole family was in Hufflepuff, and the Smiths are descended from Helga herself. Are you saying I'm a loser?"

Cormac looked around for support, saw none, and backtracked hard. "Well, maybe not _you_. There are probably decent blokes in Hufflepuff. My uncle Tiberius works at the Ministry, and he says they don't hire a lot of Hufflepuffs for the important positions…" Cormac trailed off, blushing. "He's kind of old, though," he muttered, as if excusing him.

There was an awkward moment of silence, which Vaisey broke. "Personally, I'm hoping for Slytherin. I wouldn't mind going anywhere, really, but I've heard Slytherin has the best Quidditch team, and Quidditch sounds _amazing_."

The argument that followed was very heated and involved a lot of shouting. At the end, Harry _still _didn't understand Quidditch but reckoned that anything that inspired that much passion was likely pretty entertaining. The Quidditch discussion dovetailed into a more sedate, but still interesting conversation about classes and spells.

Cedric was demonstrating a few of the spells they'd learn in first year, and seemed to fall quite naturally into the role of the teacher, seemingly unaffected by the spotlight of rapt attention.

"…and this one's actually a second-year spell, but I did a bit of reading over the summer, and I think I've got it down…" Cedric grinned cheekily. "Just hold that still, would you?" He gestured at the half-eaten sandwich still perched on Cho's knee. He twirled his wand in a tight circle. "_Engorgio_!"

Unfortunately, Cedric's aim was a bit off. Also unfortunately, Cho was still holding Harry's owl. The narrow, blue beam of light struck Hedwig directly, and there were at least three sets of screams as the snowy owl swelled to the size of a panda.

Only Cho's flailing arms were visible beneath Hedwig, who was now large enough that her head was squished against the top of the compartment. She fixed Cedric with a terrifyingly affronted stare, and her outraged _"HOOT" _was loud enough to rattle the windows.

"_Reducio!_" Cedric's voice was noticeably higher-pitched as he swept his wand in a quick V-shape, the beam striking true. Hedwig promptly shrunk to her usual size, though the furious glare she was sporting at Cedric remained quite heated.

"Sorry," muttered Cedric, grinning weakly. "Wand got a bit overexcited there."

"I bet you say that to all the girls," said Harry.

Cho was dusting herself off, smoothing Hedwig's feathers, and matching her glare for glare at Cedric. Katie Bell asked if you could do that spell _just _on someone's head, and the rest of the boys looked at her oddly.

Harry paid no attention, sinking into his seat. He was having another moment. That last comment to Cedric had felt natural, and yet Harry didn't even _understand _it. It had just felt right to say, like something he'd done forever. He felt like he needed a quiet hour or two to sort it all out, but he wasn't even sure that would work, because the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to slip out of his grasp.

There was a knock on the compartment door. An older, somewhat squat witch with grey hair and kind features opened the door and peered inside. "Anything off the trolley, dears?"

Cedric was already reaching into his pocket. "Two Cauldron Cakes, please. And Harry, if you want anything for your owl, it's on me."

"How do you know what they have?" asked Cho.

Cedric waved his hand dismissively. "Oh, they have the same thing every time."

Harry went completely still. Cedric's words bounced around his head until he could sort through it enough to put it into a coherent thought. And that thought was:

_Breakfast_.

That was what his brain had been trying to tell him. His memory of breakfast wasn't poking him because it was odd. Rather, it was because it was _not _odd. Harry flipped through his memories, recalling countless mornings making breakfast for his aunt and uncle and cousin. The same, all of them. Not similar. Not just the same food. _The same memory. _

Harry sat there, letting the sounds of the compartment wash over him as everyone chatted amicably about what treats they were going to buy. He felt cold.

About an hour ago, he'd resolved to learn everything he could as fast as possible. He was pretty sure he knew what he was going to start with.

* * *

><p>Hogwarts was more impressive the closer you got, which was saying something. The boat ride across the lake with Cho and Katie had gone swimmingly (though thankfully without any actual swimming). His first view of the castle was something Harry would always remember. His heart had clenched, and then unclenched, like he was coming home.<p>

The corridors and medieval architecture were fascinating, and the flagged stone floor of the Entrance Hall went perfectly with the flaming torches on the wall, not to mention the ghosts that floated up through the floor.

Harry was looking everywhere at once, trying to soak it all in. He was barely listening as the Deputy Headmistress, a stern-looking woman named McGonagall, explained the Sorting and the House system. He'd picked up most of it in conversations on the train, anyway. Cho was walking next to him, not quite as wide-eyed but still looking everywhere.

After McGonagall left them in a little side-room in the Entrance Hall, telling them in no uncertain terms to wait quietly until it was time to be Sorted, Harry found himself thinking about the Houses. He'd never really considered where he'd like to go, and even though most people seemed to put great stock in the question, he found he didn't have much of a preference. He was going to study, and learn magic, and make friends, and investigate his memory problem, and he could do that anywhere.

Now that he thought of it, though, he wouldn't mind being a Hufflepuff. Lowering expectations seemed like a good idea, given what he'd experienced in the wizarding world so far, and he'd felt a kinship with Cedric.

"Do you know where you want to go, Cho?" he said quietly to the girl beside him.

"My parents expect I'll be in Ravenclaw," she said tersely. She was looking at the door in front of them, foot tapping the stone floor nervously.

Harry noticed she hadn't really answered the question.

Before he could probe further, the double doors opened and McGonagall waved them inside. The sound of hundreds of voices filled the air.

The Great Hall rivaled his first look at the castle for sheer wonder. Literally thousands of hovering candles caught the eye at first glance, but one's gaze was inevitably drawn to the ceiling. It was velvet black, streaked with grey, wispy clouds, and bright stars that outshone the candles. It was so breathtaking that Harry thought for a second that the giant room was simply open to the air.

If this was what magic could do, thought Harry, he could get very used to it indeed.

It was a bit unsettling to stand near the front of the room with a couple hundred older children, faces framed in candlelight, looking at you, so Harry focused on standing tall and looking placid as the Sorting was musically explained by a talking hat.

McGonagall stepped forward holding a long scroll and began calling names, and just like that, their futures were decided.

"Aldermaston, Patrick!"

A pudgy kid with a pug nose who reminded Harry a little of Dudley approached the Sorting Hat and tentatively lifted it onto his head.

The entire room was quiet, only a few coughs and scuffing of chairs marring the silence. Harry shifted from foot to foot. It wasn't exactly gripping theater.

After a minute that felt like ten, the Hat opened its 'mouth' and shouted "GRYFFINDOR!"

The room burst into applause, particularly from the red and gold table. Harry saw Fred and George clapping enthusiastically, and didn't see anyone who looked like them, so felt safe in assuming the whole triplets thing had been a joke. Those two struck him as the kind of people where you never really could be _sure, _though.

"Bell, Katie!"

Katie bounded up to the Hat, fearless. This time, the Hat spent only about ten seconds doing whatever it did before yelling "GRYFFINDOR!" Katie turned back to them, waved at Cho and Harry, and went to join the red and gold.

Miles Bletchley joined the Slytherins, who looked a hard bunch, even in the candlelight. Eddie Carmichael became the first Ravenclaw, and the blue and bronze table clapped a bit more sedately, but willingly enough, and then…

"Chang, Cho!" The dark-haired girl next to him grabbed Harry's hand and gave it a quick squeeze, then approached the Hat. Harry watched, fascinated, as Cho closed her eyes with the Hat on her head, her lips moving imperceptibly. It was almost like she was having a conversation.

Cho's Sorting stretched on, and Harry was starting to get a bit nervous, but finally the Hat shouted "RAVENCLAW!" and Cho hopped off the stool, her face unreadable.

Harry missed the next few names. He was looking between the tables. He watched Cedric welcome a new Hufflepuff, saw Cho slide in next to an older Ravenclaw, and Katie start chatting with the Weasley twins at the Gryffindor table. He sighed. Well, it had been a nice fantasy, anyway. He'd have to add "inter-house activities" to the research list.

"McLaggen, Cormac!" Harry looked up as the larger boy swaggered to the stage. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Cormac, but all things being equal, he'd just assume not share a dormitory with the kid, whose defining trait based on six hours in a train compartment seemed to be "loud."

The Hat had barely touched Cormac's head before it shouted "GRYFFINDOR!"

_Yes_, thought Harry. _Definitely Hufflepuff for me_. Katie Bell and her humorous, good-natured violence would have to fend for herself.

Harry felt curiously lackluster as the names crept closer to his own. What was the point of splitting everyone up at age eleven, anyway? Mindful of Cedric's advice, he resolved to not _immediately _say that Houses were stupid. At least not on his first day. Or without doing some research.

"Potter, Harry!" McGonagall's crisp voice cut through his musing, and Harry looked up.

Everyone was staring at him. He heard his own name run laps around the room, repeated in whispers. From a little down the line, Mike Vaisey gave him a tentative thumbs-up.

Harry blew out a breath, walked to the stool, and shoved the Hat on his head.

It was a curious sensation. The voices of the Hall dropped away to a buzz, and a small voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere spoke in his ear.

"Well, this is a problem."

And that was all. Harry shuffled on the stool. Feeling foolish, he closed his eyes and thought, _uh, hello? Anyone there?_

"Be quiet, Mr. Potter," said the small voice. "I'm thinking."

The Hat lapsed into silence again. Harry waited. He couldn't hear anything; either the magic around the Hat took a while to kick in completely, or the Hall had gone silent. He felt a kind of breathless anticipation.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Potter," said the Hat. "Your mind is…not all there. No, no," it said, picking up on Harry's dismay. "I don't mean you're damaged or mentally ill or anything like that. I mean your mind, your memories, literally aren't all there. I can see that you've been struggling with this yourself. I wish I could offer you an answer, but I cannot. Whoever did this to you guarded specifically against the way in which I examine your mind… and I will leave you to draw your own conclusion about that."

_So can you Sort me or not? _

"Curious. You don't appear to be overly worried about the possibility that I cannot."

_If you can't, I'll figure something out._

"Yes, you are quite resolved, aren't you?" said the Hat. Its voice had a quality of…tasting, or measuring. "That does indeed seem to be your most defining quality. You, Mr. Potter, are implacable. When the trumpet sounds, when the lines are drawn, you will rush in where angels fear to tread."

Harry could see where this was going, and his thoughts took a panicky turn. _Wait, don't I get a say in – _

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the Hat.

* * *

><p>Harry couldn't sleep. The four-poster had deep-red velvet curtains, and was unquestionably the finest bed Harry had ever slept in… that he could remember, at least.<p>

And therein lay the problem.

It was a strange and horrifying thing, not to be able to trust his own mind. Harry didn't know what magic could do, but he was pretty sure Hagrid had mentioned a whole department of the Ministry of Magic dedicated to modifying people's memories. And that was _terrifying._

He had to know. He had to know what someone could do to a mind, if it could be fought, or detected, or reversed, and he had to figure it all out without tipping off the person who'd done it, who could be literally anyone with a wand, lest they catch on and finish the job. Discretion was his only advantage.

Harry sighed and sat up in bed, opening the curtain. He could see grey light filtering in through the windows, though he had no idea what time it was. He'd have to add that to the list: buy a watch. Harry assumed there wasn't an easy magical method of telling time, since he'd seen plenty of students on the train with watches.

He vaguely remembered the Gryffindor Prefect who'd led them to the common room, a tall, dour-looking blond named Vogler, mention something about curfew, but he didn't recall any restriction on when one could get up.

Padding quietly out of bed, Harry dressed, taking care to make as little noise as possible – though it was hardly necessary with Cormac snoring up a storm.

The Gryffindor common room was empty and lifeless, though the fireplace crackled merrily. Harry opened the portrait hole and climbed out.

The castle was still and quiet. Despite his forewarning to take note of where he was, he was lost within minutes. But since he wasn't trying to be anywhere in particular, he was unperturbed.

Portraits watched him, their silent eyes following him as he explored the empty hallways, and he could have sworn one of the suits of armor turned its head to follow him.

Harry was just starting to consider trying to look for something specific, namely the library, when something caught his eye. He'd been walking down a hallway a few floors below Gryffindor Tower, poking his head into the various doorways, which seemed to be mostly disused and dusty classrooms. But the last door in the hallway was actually protruding from the wall, like someone had propped up a freestanding doorway flush with the wall.

Standing in front of it, it looked exactly like the other doors in the hallway, but when Harry twisted the doorknob and pulled, it opened onto the hallway's stone wall.

Blinking, Harry moved back and examined it. A doorway to nothing seemed to fit the general spirit of what he'd seen of the castle so far, but surely there had to be some _reason _for it. He moved to the side and saw that the hinges seemed to be supported by air; attached to nothing. Yet when Harry tried to budge the door, it refused to move.

After a few minutes' investigation turned up nothing, Harry resorted to angrily swinging the door open. Instead of bouncing off the wall, it stayed there, fully open, snapping into place with an audible _click_.

Harry was bemused, but undaunted. He stepped back. He looked at the door from every angle. He even got up close to the wall and tried to see what the door had stuck to when it opened.

And that was when he noticed, quite accidentally, that the hallway seemed to have sprouted an extra door.

Harry slowly stepped back. He was _sure _there had been six doorways, counting this one that led nowhere, but now there were unquestionably seven. With mounting excitement, he scurried forward and started opening them again.

Disused classroom, disused classroom, disused classroom…

Disused classroom with a giant mirror inside. Harry slowly entered the room, his eyes on the huge object sitting in the center.

The mirror was gigantic, stretching almost to the ceiling. Yet it was very beautiful, with an ornate gold frame and two gently curving clawed feet. Written across the top, engraved on the gold, was an inscription in an elegant scrawl.

_Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi._

Harry approached the mirror…

…and nearly jumped out of his skin.

His own image looked back at him, and surrounding him was a crowd of vague, ominous black shapes, people-sized shadows standing still as statues.

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><p><strong>Reviews, as always, are very much appreciated.<strong>


	3. Chapter 2 - The Nature of Hufflepuffs

****Author's Note: Chapter 1 has been revised. Vaisey hit too many cliche alerts (although to everyone pointing out that he's an OC, go check the _dramatis personae_ for Half-Blood Prince; he's actually a canon character) and has been (hopefully) toned down from "ragequit the story" annoying to "normal 11-year old" annoying. I appreciate the feedback - it honestly makes the story better.****

_Last updated: 12/5/14 _

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><p><strong>Chapter 2 – The Nature of Hufflepuffs<strong>

Cedric Diggory sat on a bench in the Great Hall and thought about breakfast.

This was not at all odd, given the fact that Cedric was, at the moment, participating in that very activity. September 2nd happened to be a Sunday, and that meant everyone got one glorious day before classes started, the result of which being a breakfast that was long and lingering. It seemed no one was eager to start the day, and the steady buzz of conversation in the Hall had a light, cheerful energy.

Also on Cedric's mind, besides breakfast, were Quidditch tryouts. He'd practiced hard over the summer, and though he knew it was a long shot, he harbored a not-so-secret desire to be Hufflepuff's Seeker. Gabriel Truman, the team's current Seeker, hadn't caught the Snitch once last year. Cedric was trying to tamp down his excitement – second years hardly ever made House teams, and Truman wasn't _bad_, exactly – and having only moderate success.

And finally, Cedric was thinking about Harry Potter. It was a secondary, idle thought, but it was there. Harry was a bit of a puzzle. On the one hand, Cedric felt like he'd connected with Harry more in one train ride than he had with his housemates in a whole school year. On the other, Harry was…odd. For someone who ostensibly grew up in the Muggle world, Harry sometimes seemed awfully relaxed and confident joking about brand-new things. Then again, sometimes he didn't.

As if his thoughts had summoned him, Cedric became aware that Harry had entered the Hall. Cedric was facing away from the entrance the Gryffindors used, but it was easy enough to tell. The energy in the Hall changed. Cedric saw several of his housemates craning their necks, staring, and he heard Harry's name in dozens of fragments of conversation.

Cedric looked over his shoulder, and in the space of a few seconds the "puzzle" aspect of Harry reared its head. Harry was walking into the Hall, seemingly impervious to the attention, his body language calm and relaxed, even his _walk _smooth and quiet. And then from one moment to the next, he was tense, looking around while obviously trying to be subtle about it, so clearly and gracelessly _eleven _that Cedric was almost convinced that he'd imagined those first few moments. But he hadn't.

He waved at Harry, catching his eye, motioning him over. Cedric turned to the third-year Hufflepuff next to him. "Budge up."

Harry Potter plopped down onto the bench beside Cedric, elbows slumping on the table.

"Hey, Harry. Cutting it a bit close – breakfast is nearly over," said Cedric.

"It's okay, I'm not very hungry," said Harry, scowling down at the food as if personally offended by it.

"You feeling all right?" asked Cedric, glancing over at the younger boy. "You look a bit peaky."

Harry took a while to answer. "I didn't sleep well," he said at last.

Cedric took a moment to chew his food. "The first night can be tough," he said. "I remember my first night here. I was really excited by Hogwarts and everything, but it's kind of scary and sad to leave home."

Harry looked at him, quickly shook his head. "That's definitely _not _it." He started loading his plate with food, scowling all the while.

Cedric filed that bit of information away. _Unhappy home life, got it._ He was about to apologize for bringing it up when Zacharias Smith leaned forward from a few places down the bench and fixed Harry with a haughty stare that he couldn't quite pull off.

"What are _you _doing here, anyway? This is the Hufflepuff table."

The reaction of the table to Smith's words was interesting. Cedric had already noticed the strange, double-sided nature of his House: an exclusive inclusivity. Hufflepuff was no more immune to House pride and rivalry than any of the others, but their mandate of hard work, loyalty and friendship made them almost aggressively try to be the _most _welcoming House. Sometimes. Which is why it was interesting that, at a glance, about a third of the table was looking at Smith with disapproval, another third with annoyance, and the last third like they agreed with him but weren't going to say anything about it.

"I'm having breakfast," said Harry. "What's the problem?"

"Leave it alone, Smith," said Cedric over Zacharias's protests. "I invited him."

That seemed to be enough to forestall any comments, but Cedric didn't miss the undercurrent of tension that hung around. Another feature of Hufflepuff was that, as a whole, they were fairly resistant to change, especially disruptive change.

"People seem to take the whole House thing pretty seriously," said Harry. Then, for no reason Cedric could think of, Harry winced, like he'd said something wrong and was waiting for the fallout.

"That's an understatement," said Cedric.

Harry pushed some food around on his plate. "So is this where you tell me that I should not say whatever I think about how good or bad the House system is until I know what I'm talking about?"

"You remembered," said Cedric, a little bit touched. "And yes, I wouldn't mouth off about Houses just yet. You're kind of stuck with them, and they're set up so that they're important. You'll spend more time with the Gryffindor first year boys than with everyone else combined, probably."

Harry scowled. "Great." He looked over his shoulder at the Gryffindor table, then back to Cedric. "Does this mean we can't, you know… hang out?"

He said it with such a strange combination of bravado and vulnerability that Cedric burst out laughing. "No, no," he said at Harry's offended look. "I wasn't laughing at you. You're just very, I don't know, direct." Harry just stared at him. "We can hang out," said Cedric, hoping that would clear things up.

Harry nodded, going back to his breakfast. They were both quiet for a few minutes. Cedric was just putting the finishing touches on a decent-sized ball of anxiety over Quidditch tryouts when Harry got his attention.

He was pointing to the High Table. "Who's that?" Cedric followed where he was pointing.

"The Headmaster? You didn't hear him speak last night at the Sorting?"

Harry grinned sheepishly. "Wasn't really listening."

"I've been there," said Cedric. "I don't think I heard one word from when we stepped into the Hall to when McGonagall called 'Diggory'."

Harry was staring at the High Table, his eyes narrowing. "He's familiar."

Cedric tapped the side of his cup thoughtfully. "I don't see how that could be. You were raised Muggle, and Aberforth Dumbledore is about as wizardly as wizards get."

"Tell me about him." Harry's eyes hadn't left the High Table.

"Well," said Cedric, struggling to remember the bits and pieces he'd picked up last year, and what his parents had told him. "He's been Headmaster for about a decade, and he taught Care of Magical Creatures before that. That reminds me, actually, whatever you do, _do not _mention anything about goats in his presence, ever."

Harry finally broke his gaze from the High Table and looked at Cedric, bemused. "Huh?"

"Something I heard from one of the upper forms. He said he'd tell me why when I was older. But last year the Weasley twins charmed all the salt shakers on the High Table to make goat noises at the Headmaster during the Leaving Feast, and I think their detentions actually carried over to this year."

Harry looked across the room to where Fred and George were playing "celery walrus teeth" for the amusement of the Gryffindor table. "Yeah, they seem like the type."

"Anyway, aside from the goat thing, he's a really powerful wizard. He dueled his own brother and Grindelwald long enough get Albus to see the light. And then the two of them took Grindelwald down together, or at least that's how the story goes."

Harry was looking back at the High Table, a faraway expression on his face. "Grindelwald was a Dark wizard?"

"A bad one," said Cedric. "I don't know much about him. It was almost fifty years ago, but it was a big deal. Even the Muggles got involved, I think. You could look it up in the library."

"Oh, I think I'll be looking up a _lot _of stuff in the library," said Harry softly. "So he's powerful. What else?"

"I… don't really know," said Cedric. Aberforth Dumbledore was old and powerful and an authority figure. It had never really occurred to him until this moment that he was also a _person_. It felt a bit strange, like wondering if Professor Sprout had ever been married, or what color her curtains were.

"What about the brother? Albus?"

"Him I know something about," said Cedric. "My dad's in the Ministry, and he had a few run-ins with Albus over the merpeople living in the Black Lake back when Albus was Headmaster. My dad says he's a stubborn, crazy old codger, but a lot of people really respected him."

Harry didn't miss the phrasing. "And they don't anymore?"

Cedric shifted in his seat nervously. "Something to do with the war against You-Know-Who. No one really likes to talk about it, especially my parents. All I know is that right after You-Know-Who vanished, Albus Dumbledore went from being the best hope for England, to losing his positions at Hogwarts and on the Wizengamot. I think he was even formally banned from England. No one's seen him since he left, but you still hear his name sometimes because he's the head of the ICW."

"ICW?" asked Harry.

"It's, uh, this group of international wizards, in some kind of… confederation…" Cedric trailed off, then blushed. "You could probably – "

Harry grinned. "Library. Got it."

Cedric fought down a sense of irritation. He _tried _to listen when his dad pontificated about the Ministry, but it was dreadfully dull, and Cedric hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told Harry on the train that his life could use a bit of excitement. To be twelve years old and bored was a terrible thing.

They were both quiet again, and Cedric let the noises of the Great Hall wash over him. He looked up at the enchanted ceiling – overcast sky today. A group of Slytherins, tight-knit and scowling, stood up and headed towards the dungeons. At the Slytherin table, Cedric saw Mike Vaisey eating by himself, looking a bit shell-shocked. Cedric hoped he was tough; life wasn't easy for a Muggle-born in Slytherin. Across the room, Penelope Clearwater was giving an impromptu lecture on basic Arithmancy to a group of rapt first-year Ravenclaws. He spied the girl from Harry's compartment, Cho Chang, among them. Just another morning at Hogwarts.

Harry was staring at the High Table again. "What about the rest of them? I remember McGonagall from last night, but that's it."

Cedric gestured with his fork. "Professor Flitwick, Charms. That's Professor Sprout next to him, she's Head of Hufflepuff. Professor Vector, Arithmancy. That's Professor Snape on the other side of the Headmaster; he teaches Potions and he's… not fun. Next to him… huh." Cedric squinted, getting a better look at the man. He ate very stiffly, his hair wispy and white and covered by a moth-eaten fez. His face and hands were pockmarked, the skin around the scars carrying a faint greenish tinge. But the most interesting thing about him was the fact that, standing discreetly behind him, a man and a woman in dark Auror robes stood, still as statues but very alert, quite obviously with their attention focused on the white-haired man.

"That's Elphias Doge," said Cedric. "He wasn't at the Feast last night. What's _he _doing here?"

"He's a famous wizard?" asked Harry, who seemed to have entirely forgotten the food in front of him.

"More like infamous. He's a criminal, I think. He had a big trial in front of the Wizengamot. He was part of the Order, and they're bad news. I can't believe he's in the same room as the Headmaster. Maybe that's what the Aurors are for?"

Harry shook his head. "Cedric, you just used a bunch of words that I don't understand. Do you think you could back up and – "

"Hey, Potter, what are you doing over _here_?" A voice cut into their conversation, and Cedric looked over his shoulder and saw Cormac McLaggen sweeping his gaze over the Hufflepuff table with disdain.

Cedric saw Zacharias Smith return the look with interest, and noted with half amusement and half sadness that it wouldn't be the first budding friendship destroyed by the House system.

As Harry turned to reply, his expression scathing, Cedric nudged him, and as Harry looked his way, he shook his head fractionally.

"Just talking to Cedric," said Harry, his voice controlled.

"Well, you should come back to _our _table," said Cormac. "People are gonna start to wonder."

"Sure," said Harry, swinging his legs over the bench and standing. He glanced at Cedric. "We'll catch up later?"

"Okay," said Cedric, nodding.

He watched as Harry and Cormac started walking over to the Gryffindor table. About halfway there, as Cormac kept talking, Harry's expression got more and drawn in until he abruptly turned and walked away, leaving a baffled-looking Cormac standing in the middle of the Hall as Harry slid into place at the Ravenclaw table next to Cho Chang, an easy grin on his face as he started chatting with her.

_It's a puzzle_, thought Cedric.

* * *

><p>The golden ball flickered at the edge of his vision as Cedric swung his broom down and to the left, cutting viciously through the air, his hand stretching, sweeping…<p>

And gone. He clenched his teeth, pulling up and looking around. He accelerated, the wind whipping at his hair as he rose above the pitch, his gaze darting from place to place.

_There_.

The Snitch hovered close to the ground at the far end of the pitch. Cedric tore after it, arrow-straight. He approached at a shallow angle as it dipped and dived near the goalposts. Cedric tensed, watching for the bolt, that moment when the Snitch took off in a random direction.

When it came, he was ready, and he leaned forward, flat on his broom, following the Snitch as it shot straight up toward the middle hoop. He almost missed the moment when the Snitch swerved again, almost at a right angle, and when he veered to compensate, his foot clipped the outer edge of the hoop.

Cedric wobbled, his Cleansweep Seven shuddering with the impact. He fought to reorient himself. Even as he spun, he focused, his eyes seeking that glint of gold. _Found it._ He hauled the broom on target, leaned forward…

A whistle blew sharply, loudly.

"Ten minutes, Diggory. Come on down."

Heidi Macavoy's voice hit him like cold water, and he descended slowly. Near the middle of the pitch, a crowd of players in canary-yellow Quidditch robes watched. Gabriel Truman, his competition, was already celebrating. His girlfriend, a sixth-year whose hair was currently a shockingly bright purple, had her legs wrapped around Gabriel's waist and was kissing him soundly. Cedric didn't know Tonks well, but from what he'd seen, she wasn't one for subtlety.

"Sorry, Diggory," said Macavoy as Cedric touched down beside her. "Maybe next year."

"Yeah, sure." With a supreme effort, Cedric settled his features into an easygoing grin and stretched out his hand. The Hufflepuff Captain took it. "Thanks for considering me. Good luck this year."

"You're good, Diggory," she said. "Almost as good as Truman, and you're a second year. Keep at it." She pumped his hand a few times, released it, turned around and walked over to the rest of the Hufflepuff team.

Cedric allowed himself ten seconds to stand there and feel sorry for himself. Then he let out a long breath, mounted his broom, and zoomed up to the stands where Harry and Cho sat. The crowd of spectators was pretty thin for the Hufflepuff tryouts, and the three of them had the whole section to themselves.

"Bad luck," said Harry. "Truman's Snitch seemed a lot slower than yours."

Cho nodded distractedly, eagerly watching the Chaser tryouts taking place below. "It wasn't fair at all. Only giving you guys ten minutes, I think that's very random."

Privately, Cedric agreed. "It is what it is," he said.

"I thought you were brilliant," said Cho, finally averting her eyes from the pitch to glance at Cedric. She blushed. "I mean, your flying. I've been practicing since I was seven, and I'm not that good."

Cedric didn't quite know what to say to that, but Harry jumped in before the silence became too awkward.

"It looks really, really fun," said Harry. "Flying. It's the best thing I've seen since I've been here. Even after a few weeks of classes and magic and moving staircases, I think this is it. I mean, _flying_. Who doesn't dream about that?"

Cedric shook his head. No matter how much he kept reminding himself that Harry had grown up Muggle, it was still surprising. To think, there was an entire group of people – bigger than wizards, if what his dad told him was right – that didn't grow up with the idea that flying was something normal and common.

He held out his Cleansweep Seven. "Want a go?"

Harry took it, his eyes widening.

"I know you haven't had flying lessons yet, but it's honestly not hard. Broom does most of the work."

Standing, Harry swung his leg over the racing room. "There's something here. It feels soft."

"Brooms have a lot of charms and enchantments on them," said Cho excitedly. "You're feeling the Cushioning Charm. It was invented in 1820 by Elliot Smethwyck but it was really simple back then. It was only thirty years ago that they perfected the Auto-Adjustable part of the…" she trailed off, looking between the two boys. "What? I like Quidditch."

Cedric exchanged a look with Harry verifying that neither of them were going to say anything stupid.

"You going to try out next year?" asked Cedric.

"Yes." Cho sounded determined, but pulled into herself a bit when she said it.

"What position?"

"Seeker." The smile she gave him that time didn't come with a blush, and was a little bit scary.

Meanwhile, Harry had set himself up on Cedric's broom. He was hovering about a foot off the ground.

"It feels natural," was his only comment. He took another few seconds to settle himself into position. "Like all I need to do is lean forward and go."

Without waiting for a comment, he did so. Harry accelerated up and over the stands, then dove almost straight down. Cedric and Cho raced to the top of the stands, looking down, Cedric for a heart-stopping second thinking about how he'd have to explain to all the professors exactly how he'd handed Harry Potter the tools to break his own neck, but even as the scenario unfolded in his head, it was dashed as Harry climbed into their line of sight, shooting almost straight up at an extreme rate of speed, his whoop of joy trailing behind him.

In just a few seconds Cedric had to squint to make him out. He'd leveled off and was making for the Black Lake. Harry dove, and _sped up_ into the dive, pulling up in a spray of water as he leaned to the side and trailed his arm beneath him.

"He's insane," said Cedric.

Cho was almost squealing with joy. "He's _brilliant!_" Then her face fell, as quickly as it had lit up. "He won't be on my _team._"

They watched as Harry made his way back to the stands in a roundabout fashion, dipping and diving, then accelerating into broad, sweeping turns that became barrel rolls.

When he alighted next to Cedric and Cho, his hair was in disarray, even more than usual. His hands were white-knuckled as he dismounted, but he was grinning hugely.

"That was bracing," said Harry. He ran a hand through his hair, which did nothing to help.

Cho practically wrenched the Cleansweep out of Harry's hands, barely waiting for Cedric's nod of assent before she took off, climbing into the sky and starting a series of exuberant aerial maneuvers that came quite close to anything Cedric could pull off on a good day. He sighed.

"First time on a broom, huh?" said Cedric.

Harry shrugged.

"Bollocks," said Cedric, and Harry blinked at Cedric's tone. "There's no way. Even if you were a complete natural, even if you learned how to do that as you were doing it, I don't buy it. Too many things you did right away are things you learn over time. Way you set your feet. Way you gripped the handle."

Harry tensed, and let out a long breath. "That was the first time I've been on a broom, Cedric." His voice got very quiet. "That I can remember."

Cedric crossed his arms. "What do you mean?"

"I… look, I can't talk about this now. Meet me tonight? Midnight, fourth floor, by the tapestry of Queen Mab?"

"After curfew?"

Harry grinned. It was a nervous grin, but it was still a grin. "You were complaining about not having any excitement in your life."

They watched as Cho finished off a loop, making her way towards them. She slowed as she descended towards the stands.

"All right," said Cedric, finally. Harry nodded in grateful acknowledgement.

Cho hopped off the broom and swept it over her shoulder in one graceful motion. She handed it back to Cedric.

"This is a great broom, Cedric," she said. "I've got a Comet Two-Sixty at home, and it's like a brick compared to this." She sighed. "I really, really wish first years could have brooms. It's just not fair."

"Hmm," said Harry, who rubbed his chin in an exaggerated 'thinking' gesture. "Is there a rule that says that Cedric can't have three brooms?"

* * *

><p>Cedric felt like tiptoeing, but knew it would look ridiculous. It wasn't like running into Mrs. Norris was that likely, given the size of the castle, but if he <em>was <em>going to be caught, he was determined to do so in a dignified manner.

The abandoned wing of the fourth floor was even more unsettling at midnight. Every sound was magnified, including Cedric's breathing. The tapestry of Queen Mab looked harsh and beautiful in the stark light of Cedric's wand.

Harry was there, sitting on the floor, his back propped up against the wall opposite the tapestry. He was holding his wand in one hand, moving it slowly and precisely over a quill he held out in front of him. Cedric watched as the tip of the quill elongated, turning silver.

As Cedric approached, Harry looked up, and Cedric noticed a large bruise across his right cheek.

"You okay?" asked Cedric.

"Sure," said Harry, pocketing his wand and the half-transfigured quill. He rubbed at his face absently. "Did you know that the Queen Mab tapestry is actually a secret passage? You can only get into it if you're running fast enough, though."

"How on earth did you figure that out?"

Harry stood up, working out the kinks in his neck. "Trial and error," he said weakly. "A lot of error. She talks to you if you stand still in front of her long enough, gives you a riddle. I used a brute-force approach."

"I'll say," said Cedric. He stood there, watching Harry gather himself. "So… are you going to tell me what we're doing here?"

"Yes," said Harry.

Harry led the way down the hallway past the abandoned classrooms. With a practiced motion, he swung open the last door, which opened into nothing but the wall, and slammed it into place, completely open. Then he turned around, making his way to a doorway that Cedric was quite sure hadn't been there a moment ago.

They stood there for a full minute without saying anything. Cedric was still taking in the grandeur of the mirror when Harry spoke.

"Do you recognize it?"

"No," said Cedric, keeping his voice low, just above a whisper. Something about the mirror demanded it, like a courtroom, or a library. "There are a lot of famous magical mirrors. And a lot of them are _really _dangerous."

"This one's only dangerous if you let it be," said Harry, approaching it. "It was one of the many, many things I looked up after we talked about the library a few weeks ago." He stood at the mirror's side, running his hand along the burnished edge. "This is the Mirror of Erised. It's supposed to show you your deepest, most secret desire."

"It shows you what you want," said Cedric, stepping forward in spite of himself.

"Basically," shrugged Harry. "I get the sense that it's deeper than that, but I can't really tell, because it doesn't work for me."

Cedric turned him, surprised. "Really?"

"We'll get to that in a second. Go on, give it a try."

He should have thought about it, considered, been cautious. Instead, he stepped forward, directly in front of the Mirror.

Cedric stood there, entranced.

He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't this. He was older, for one thing. In his late teens, by the look of it. Handsome, strong, confident. He was wearing an odd assortment of clothes; furs, leathers, gloves.

The scene flickered, as did the people surrounding him. An arctic wasteland, a dense jungle, a sun-scorched desert.

He was an _explorer_. A curse-breaker, maybe. He could see it in the eyes of the people near him – respect, admiration, even a little bit of awe. It was easy to get swept up in the vision. The Cedric in the mirror looked confident, at ease, in a way that was very familiar, yet achingly out of reach. It was a confidence borne of experience.

Was that all he really desired? To grow up? It seemed too simple, too common.

He felt a tapping on his shoulder, and, very reluctantly, turned away.

"It worked for you," Harry said. Not a question.

"Yes," murmured Cedric.

"When I look into the Mirror, all I see are dark shapes."

Cedric blinked. "Dark shapes?"

"Shadows. Vague impressions of people, objects. It's blurry."

They moved away from the Mirror, facing each other.

"It's like you don't know what you really want," said Cedric.

"I don't think that's it," said Harry. He brushed a hand through his hair, suddenly looking tired, almost exhausted. "I've given this a lot of thought. Even if I had no idea what I really wanted, the Mirror should know my heart's desire. That's what it's _for_. Were you surprised, when you saw? You don't have to tell me what it was."

Cedric glanced at the Mirror, then back, an involuntary reaction. "I was surprised."

"So you didn't know either. The Mirror showed you. That means with me, there's something… missing, maybe. Or blocked. The Sorting Hat said…" he looked down, as if afraid to meet Cedric's eyes. "It said my mind wasn't all there. That it couldn't see all my memories."

Cedric's mind was racing, trying to track the implications. "So… the broom thing…"

"I think you're right, I think I have ridden a broom before," said Harry. "I just don't remember it."

"What possible reason… I mean, how would you even…"

"There are spells," said Harry. His voice was flat. "Memory modification. I looked it up."

"Yeah, but they're… you can't change a person's _life _like that. I mean, Ministry Obliviators can make a Muggle forget they saw a wizard Disapparate or something, and the really good ones can tinker with a few days, maybe a week, change something big, but you're talking about something bigger."

"A lot bigger. Years."

"Do you know when… I mean, do you think _everything_ – " He cut off, but the sentence hung in the air. _Do you think everything you know is a lie?_

Harry took a deep breath. Let it out, slowly. "I've been trying to narrow it down," he said at last. "I think whatever it is happened when I was around seven. I made breakfast for my aunt and uncle and cousin every day, since I could reach the stove…"

"_What?"_

"… and I can remember doing things wrong, getting yelled at in different ways. When I was younger, I mean. But around seven, it's all the same. Same breakfast, every morning. The same memory, I think. There are lots of little things like that. Tests, homework, even the weather."

He was talking faster, the words tumbling out. "And the more I think about it, the more little things I find that seem off. I mean I had no friends, absolutely none. There were times the summer before last when I probably didn't _talk _for a month. I remember being really shy, closed off. I _am _shy and closed off. Except when I _forget to be_. It's like I'm two people, or two _versions _of the _same _person and it's _really scary_." He stopped abruptly, gulping in air, looking at Cedric nervously.

"That's…" Cedric was momentarily lost for words. "That _does _sound scary. Not being able to trust yourself."

"You won't tell anyone, right?"

Cedric shook his head. "No way. This is… I mean, it's big, but it's your thing. I just want to help."

"Good." Harry breathed a gigantic sigh of relief. "Okay, that's good."

"We just need to think about this." Cedric walked to the side of the abandoned classroom and dragged over a pair of dusty chairs. "Let's just sit down and think this through."

"Okay," said Harry. They sat.

"Let's assume it's possible, what you're talking about. I mean, someone used magic and erased a bunch of your life and tried to make it seem like nothing happened. I mean, if you think it happened when you were around seven, then _something strange _happened then, and someone wants you to think that your life just kept going on like normal."

Harry ran his hand through his hair again. It seemed to be a wholly unconscious gesture. "Right. So do we try to figure out who did it, why they did it, or what happened to me in the first place?"

"I think the why is less important," said Cedric, leaning back in the chair, trying to relax even as his brain galloped forward. "Obviously it's very important, but it kind of answers itself if we get the other two."

"And the _why _is pretty easy," said Harry grimly. "Either someone's trying to help me, or someone's trying to hurt me."

"Maybe," said Cedric. "It might not be that simple. It might be to help someone else, like if you saw something you shouldn't."

"Something that lasted four years?"

"Okay, that's true. Maybe…"

"I keep coming back to the broom thing," said Harry. "Something long-term happened, and I learned how to ride a broom. It can't have been something _bad _then, right?"

"I… don't think you can be sure," said Cedric. "Four years is a long time."

"So we don't know anything."

"We know _some _things. It might help to write it all down."

"No." Harry shook his head. "I don't want to risk it, leaving something like that around. Someone could see it. Can't trust anyone."

Cedric hesitated. "Cho?"

"I don't know. Yeah. Probably. I've only known her a couple weeks."

"I don't mean to make you more paranoid or anything, but you've only known _me _for a couple weeks."

"I have to trust _someone_," said Harry. He looked terribly small just then, hunched over in the chair, head in his hands. "I think I'd go stark raving mad if I didn't. I honestly do."

Cedric didn't quite know what to say to that. The idea of not trusting someone was kind of a fuzzy one, something that happened in stories, or far in the future. Harry Potter, he supposed, had a way of making you think about all kinds of hypothetical things in a more personal way.

Harry stood up. "I think we should go. Can't risk being out too long. That stupid cat nearly got me night before last."

Following his lead, Cedric got to his feet. "Can't say I'm totally okay with breaking the rules like this."

"It's fine," said Harry, waving his hand like he was brushing away a fly. "If they really cared all that much, they'd make it a lot harder to wander around at night."

They opened the door to the hallway, slowly peeking their heads out to make sure the coast was clear.

"I'll tell Cho this weekend," said Harry. "Maybe bring her here, do it the same way."

"That's good," said Cedric absently, already mentally mapping out the best way back to the Hufflepuff dormitory. "Maybe you should start really focusing on times when you feel like you're different, or remembering something, or whatever you call it. Keep a list in your head."

"Yeah," said Harry, slipping out of the room and into the hallway. "Good idea. Listen, Cedric…" He turned, not quite looking Cedric in the eyes. "Just… thanks."

There was a lot of meaning packed into that word.

"Sure, Harry," said Cedric. He tried to put the same amount of feeling behind his two words and wasn't sure he'd done it right.

They parted ways, and Cedric took his time getting back.

* * *

><p>"Heads up!"<p>

Harry's voice caught him off-guard, and Cedric barely had time to react. He threw himself down and to the right, almost slipping off his broom, and caught the bean bag a few feet off the snow-covered ground.

He leveled off, felt the bag grow hot even through his gloves, and threw it up in the air blindly.

He heard Cho's startled yelp and turned just in time to see the bag glance off her outstretched fingers.

Harry adjusted his dive, swooping in to grab it. He was clutching a second and third bean bag in his left hand, and he flicked one at Cedric as he dove. He caught and threw in the same motion, passing it back to Cho.

"Yes!" Harry threw up his arm triumphantly, and then noticed the remaining bag in his hand. "Crap."

It exploded in a _poof _into a purple, foul-smelling cloud.

After Cho had finished laughing, she joined Cedric as he hovered near the ground. They were near the Black Lake, snow all around them, the tall, imposing fixture of Hogwarts in the background. They weren't the only ones enjoying the last weekend before the Christmas holiday. A group of fifth-year Hufflepuffs were taking a break from revision to start a snowball fight near the gamekeeper's hut. Fred and George Weasley were nearby, in the middle of building a fifteen-foot tall, monstrous looking snowman that would undoubtedly be Charmed to do something unspeakably rude and humorous.

Katie Bell was sitting near the greenhouses, chatting with two second-year Gryffindor girls whose names escaped Cedric. Cedric had originally thought Katie might have gravitated towards himself, Harry and Cho, as she was the only other first-year Gryffindor Harry could stand, but instead, she'd bonded with the two girls she was sitting with now, both Chasers on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, if Cedric remembered right.

Harry floated down to ground level, joining them, but keeping himself far enough away that the stench of Dungbombs was muted.

"We need to get another set of these," said Harry, holding up the bean bag. "There was no way that was five seconds. It's losing its magic or something."

"Don't be a sore loser," said Cho, hovering sideways to nudge his shoulder. She crinkled her nose. "You smell _terrible_."

Harry glared at her.

"So, you're both staying for the Christmas hols?" asked Cedric, brushing a dusting of snow off his broom handle. His finger traced the dark blue lettering that read _Cleansweep Seven_. Harry and Cho's brooms bore similar markings.

Cho bobbed her head. "My mum's dragging my dad to a Transfiguration conference in Prague. They said I could come, but, you know…" she trailed off. "Not that I don't want to see them. But this will be nice, I think, being here. It's really beautiful when it's snowing."

"I'm staying," said Harry. "I'd stay even if we had to go to Potions every day. It would still beat my aunt and uncle's house."

Cedric cast a sidelong glance at Harry. "I still don't get why you hate Potions. It's a really interesting subject."

"Snape is such a… such a _twat_," said Harry.

Cho sputtered at the coarse language, almost falling off her broom as she tried – ineffectually – to smack Harry, who dodged easily.

"Honestly, Harry, he's not that bad," said Cedric.

"You only think that because you've never had a Potions class with the Slytherins," muttered Harry darkly. "And he's got it out for me. Last week he took points off because I didn't know the capital of Greece."

"He didn't really ask you that," said Cho uncertainly.

"Did too. I said Athens, and then he just smirks and says in his slimy, arrogant voice, 'The _magical _capital, Potter.' Like I was supposed to know that!"

"Well, to be fair, the ICW has its headquarters in Patras, so most wizards would assume that's what you were – " Cedric held up his hands as Harry glared at him. "Right. Not helping."

"You know who's worse than Snape?" asked Cho. "Professor Doge. He's _creepy_. I don't think I've ever seen him blink. And those two Aurors that follow him everywhere don't even _pretend _that they're not watching him. Why would we have a Defense professor who needed to be guarded by Aurors?"

"I don't know, Hogwarts runs through Defense professors pretty fast," said Cedric. "At this point, we're probably down to 'qualified, respectable, and willing to teach – pick two'."

"He knows what he's talking about, at least," said Harry. "But he's got a pretty bad reputation. I asked around. That vigilante group, the Order of the Phoenix – he was part of it. A few months after, you know –" he gestured at his scar "– he almost went to Azkaban for something. And then about a year ago, he got caught breaking into the Ministry. I think he's teaching because of that, actually. You know, like, community service."

Cho and Cedric looked at each other blankly.

"Never mind," said Harry. "Anyway, there's something off about him, definitely, but at least he's not a complete _git_."

"You think Doge might have something to do with your... _thing_?" asked Cedric. He lowered his voice at the end.

"Dunno," shrugged Harry. "Can't go around accusing everyone who appears kind of evil of Memory Charming me, or I'd have started with Snape and Filch."

Cedric sighed. It had been months, and although Harry's jarring personality shifts had faded, they weren't any closer to solving the mystery of his missing years. Even with Cho's input, they'd been unable to think of any good avenues to explore. They'd been hampered by Harry's insistence that they keep their project a secret, and blatantly asking teachers about memory modification or checking books out of the library on Obliviators wasn't exactly keeping a low profile.

"What are _they_ doing, do you think?" asked Cho. Cedric craned his neck to follow her glance, and saw a group of older students clustered together near the main gates. They weren't doing anything outlandish – a dozen or so sixth and seventh years standing in a loose circle – but what was notable about them was the fact that the group was made up of students from all four Houses.

"That's odd," said Harry, apparently picking up on it as well.

"Huh," said Cedric. He looked back toward the gamekeeper's hut, at Fred and George. "You know, something like this happened last year around the same time. The weeks leading up to Christmas, you'd see groups of older students from different Houses getting together like this. The Weasley twins were bragging that they knew what it was about, said one of their older brothers told them about it."

"Want to go ask them about it?" said Harry. "Maybe give them a hand with that snowman; it looks interesting. Are those _tentacles_?"

"Actually," said Cho, "I was hoping we could do something else." She gestured and Cedric and Harry glanced at each other, then followed as she rose into the air. She ended up several hundred feet off the ground, hovering just at the edge of the Black Lake.

Without speaking, they arranged themselves in a triangle, facing inward. Cho smiled slightly as Cedric and Harry looked to her, waiting for her signal. She wasn't shy about letting them know how much she enjoyed taking the lead.

One hand steadying herself on her broom, Cho reached into her thick winter coat and pulled out her wand, holding it up. Harry and Cedric copied her, watching closely for her first move.

Even before she started to cast, Cedric was speaking. They'd practiced, and for the timing to work out just right, he needed to jump the gun a bit.

"_Cephusortia_," said Cedric firmly, focusing on the centerpoint between them and moving his wand in a quick wavy gesture.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_." Harry's timing was nearly perfect, and Cedric's conjured shallow, stone bowl barely dipped.

"_Caerulignis_." Cho rushed it a little, trying to time it right on top of Harry's spell, and the bluebell flames spilled over the bowl for a moment, flickering to the ground like dying blue cinders.

The end result, when all was said and done, looked rather impressive. Cedric, Cho and Harry inched forward, warmed by the fire, hovering high in the air, surrounding a wide, stone bowl with a roaring magical blue fire contained in it. Cedric noticed the snowball fight on the grounds flag for a moment as more than a few students looked up at them.

"God, magic is so cool," mumbled Harry as he tugged off his gloves, holding one hand at a time out over the fire.

They hung in the air for a minute, enjoying the warmth.

"So, I wanted to make this a special occasion," said Cho. "I know it's not really Christmas yet, and we're all staying here anyway, but I wanted to say…" she sped up, her voice getting a little higher. "I know you're boys so you're not allowed to say it out loud, but you're both my really good friends and you mean a lot to me and I thought maybe we could tell each other something about our lives that we've never told anyone else, or something about our feelings, and Harry if you laugh at me I swear I'll hex you right off that broom."

Harry wiped the grin off his face, looking at her soberly. "No laughing. I don't know about sharing feelings, though. You know boys only have like three of them, right?"

"In the spirit of not being a stereotype, I'm going to have to disagree with you," said Cedric.

"I was only kidding," muttered Harry.

"Maybe not feelings," said Cho. "But we've talked about a lot of stuff, and I've noticed we never talk about our lives away from Hogwarts. And I think there's a good reason – none of them are that great. At least, that's what I've picked up on from you two. And I thought since it's kind of uncomfortable, we'd never talk about it if we didn't bring it up all awkwardly like this, but maybe if we did, it would be nice."

"Tell me honestly," said Harry, turning to Cedric. "Have the three of us just been spending too much time together, or did that kind of make sense?"

"Prat," said Cho, not unkindly.

"There's not much to tell," said Cedric. He kept his tone clipped and even. "My parents are fine. I mean, they've never done anything wrong or yelled at me or anything, and they're _really _proud of me when I get good grades and stuff. They're just a little… cold, I guess. We'd never have this kind of conversation. They care a lot about what things look like, and less about what's actually going on under the surface."

Cho was looking at him, her gaze a bit too understanding.

"They're really not bad," said Cedric, feeling a need to defend them, and recognizing at the same time that it came from an ingrained need to project the right image. He scowled. "But if you ever come visit, Harry, they'll be a lot more happy that you're the Boy Who Lived than they will at me making a friend."

"Gotcha," said Harry, sighing.

Cho brushed snow off her jacket, looking intently into the bluebell flames. "I guess my parents are a little like Cedric's," she said after a few moments. "They don't care as much about appearances, but they don't talk about feelings much either. They run a business making high-end telescopes for Astronomy, and they're _really _focused on that. They assume I'm going to be a part of it, and they hate that I like Quidditch so much."

"That's… not fun," said Cedric. He tried to imagine what it would be like to have his parents fight him on something like that. On the one hand, it would be nice to know that they _cared_. On the other… well, he did enjoy the latitude that came with parents like his.

They both turned to Harry expectantly.

"My turn, huh?" he said. He followed Cho's example and looked into the fire. The flames, thought Cedric, were even more mesmerizing than real fire. The blue seemed to deepen in the center of the bowl, and the way they sprung into being continuously was almost hypnotic.

"Besides the obvious bit where I can't really tell what my life at home was like past the age of seven, growing up with the Dursleys was pretty much what you'd expect," said Harry. "My first memory of dear old Aunt Petunia is of her slapping my hand away as I tried to hug her, and her saying 'I'm not your mother.' I'll just let you extrapolate the rest of my childhood from there."

Cedric was torn between asking Harry where he'd heard the word 'extrapolate' and flying over and giving him a manly, but supportive clap on the shoulder.

Cho apparently felt no such uncertainty. She dipped her broom and nudged over to Harry, and then tentatively – because of the fact that it was hard to balance with one hand on a broom, or because she was nervous? – put her arm around his shoulders. She didn't say anything.

"Thanks," said Harry after a while. Cho moved away, going back to her place in the triangle. "I'm kind of over it, though. After a while it just becomes normal. And I don't think I'm too messed up because of it. That's why I like to think whatever happened to me was a good thing, even if I can't remember. I mean, it had to be better than _that_."

Cho looked away.

Cedric cleared his throat. "Um. You guys want to go ask Fred and George about those upper years?"

Harry drew his wand quickly, apparently eager for the change of subject. "Yeah, definitely." He pointed his wand at the stone bowl. "_Finite Incantatem_."

The bowl and the flames popped out of existence.

"Show-off," said Cho, grinning at him.

"If you have friends in second year and you're not learning all the spells they know, you're not trying hard enough," said Harry with a solemn expression that quickly turned into a smirk directed Cho's way.

At more or less the same time, they wheeled in the direction of Fred and George's monster snowman and started flying.

Cedric drifted to Harry's side. "How did you cancel the bowl and the flames at the same time?" He had to raise his voice over the rushing wind.

Harry frowned. "Not sure."

"Something to add to the list?"

"Damn. Yeah." Harry was barely concentrating on flying, his expression looking almost comically thoughtful. "I think it helps if you think of them as one thing. The bowl and the flame, I mean."

Cedric would have continued the discussion, but it was a short flight to the gamekeeper's hut.

Harry and Cedric landed, brushing against the snow, coming to a stop and then dismounting. Cho, on the other hand, elected to go with her signature move, not even stopping as her feet hit the ground, pulling her broom through her legs and sweeping it onto her shoulders in one movement.

"Now who's the show-off?" said Harry.

"Aw, it's okay, Harry," said Cho. "You could learn how to do it if you really tried. Probably. Maybe."

"I _know_ I could learn it, but I could spend the ten hours it would take learning something _useful_ instead."

"It's _very _useful."

"How, exactly?"

"Because sometimes it's useful to look awesome."

Harry stared at her for a moment before throwing up his hands in exasperation and walking towards Fred and George.

"So how long did it actually take you to learn?" asked Cedric.

"Maybe an hour a day, all of last summer," said Cho. "And I fell down a lot."

"Right. Gonna have to go with Harry on this one."

Harry was already deep in conversation with Fred and George as Cedric approached.

"… couldn't say one way or the other," said one of the twins. "We're not the type to just go around blabbing other people's secrets."

"Not unless it would be really, really funny," said the other.

"How about a trade, then?" said Harry. "I happen to know for a fact that you've been trying to unlock the secret passage on the second floor near the statue of Barnabas the Bloated."

"We know you know," said a twin. Cedric decided, arbitrarily, that it was Fred. "You weren't very sneaky when you were watching us."

Harry's eyebrows climbed his forehead. "I was _extremely_ sneaky. There was no way you spotted me."

"We have our ways," said George, with a passable attempt at a mysterious smile.

"Regardless," said Harry, shaking it off. "Do we have a deal? I tell you how to unlock the statue, you tell us what's going on with the upper years."

The twins looked at each other, one of those silent moments of communication. "Deal," said Fred.

"You first," said Harry. "We both know the secret passage is worth more. Whatever the upper years are doing can't be _that _interesting or they wouldn't be doing it out in the open."

"It's kind of an open secret, actually," said George. "The staff knows all about it. There's a Christmas party every year for every student above third year. Last year's House Cup winners get to pick location and details, and the losers have to pay for it."

"That's it?" said Cho, looking unimpressed. "Just a party?"

"_Just_ a party?" said Fred, aghast.

"From what we hear, it's a bit more than that," said George. "It lasts the whole night, right before everyone goes home for Christmas, and it's basically the one time the Houses aren't at each other's throats. You do the math. People get crazy. Our older brother Charlie told us everyone calls the train home the next day the Hangover Express."

"I'm surprised the professors let them get away with that," said Cedric.

"It's kind of an unspoken understanding, from what we hear," said George. "The staff turns a blind eye, and in return the upper forms make sure everyone cares about House points."

"I _knew _there had to be a reason everyone was so uptight about points," said Harry.

"Well, _we _still don't care about them," said Fred loftily. "One has to maintain one's priorities."

"Now the secret passage, if you please," said George.

"Fine," said Harry, rolling his eyes. He stepped forward and cupped his hand around his mouth, leaning close to Fred.

"Really?" said Fred as Harry pulled away. "With your _leg_?"

"I swear," said Harry.

"If you're having us on…" said George.

"Don't worry, I'm not pulling your leg," said Harry.

Fred groaned. "We really should have had that one."

Cedric stepped forward, breaking into the conversation. It was better to not let Fred and George get on a roll. "Hate to break this up, but we're about to have company." He pointed to the left, where a group of boys were trudging through the snow towards them.

"That's Zacharias Smith," said Cho, narrowing her eyes. "What does _he _want?"

"Who knows?" said Harry, glancing over at the oncoming group, then away, dismissing them. "Whatever it is, it's bound to be annoying. I say we fly off."

"Hey, you can't just leave us here," said George. "Our snow-monster isn't even done yet. And we haven't charmed the tentacles to snake out and drag people into the mouth."

"Hilarious," said Cho.

"Let's see what he's got to say," said Cedric. "They're all people from Hufflepuff. It wouldn't look great if I just flew away."

Harry half-turned, giving him a look, and Cedric was reminded of what he'd told Harry and Cho a few minutes ago about maintaining an image. He squared his shoulders, facing the approaching group.

There were six of them, all Hufflepuffs, all boys, no one older than third year. Cedric knew all of them.

"What's that supposed to be?" said Zacharias, pointing at Fred and George's creation.

"Why don't you step about ten feet closer and find out?" said George. He waved his wand and one of the snow-tentacles twitched ominously.

Zacharias crossed his arms. "We're not here for you two. We just want to talk to this lot." He pointed at Harry, Cedric and Cho.

"Make it quick, Smith," said Harry, flicking a bit of snow off his fingernails. "Going by our previous conversations, I don't exactly have high hopes that you're going to say anything worthwhile."

"What an arrogant git," he muttered. He turned to the group of Hufflepuffs. "See what I mean?" He turned back to Harry. "What gives _you _the power to know what I say isn't important?"

"Experience?" said Harry, shrugging impatiently.

"Did you guys come down just to trade insults?" said Cedric. "I really don't like how that looks for us."

"That's rich," said Zacharias. "You said _us_. When you spent more time with those two than you do with your own House."

"It's called having friends, Smith," snapped Harry. "Maybe you should try it."

Cho put an arm out and tugged on Harry's sleeve, trying to get his attention and shaking her head.

Zacharias pointed at them dramatically. "Fine! You want me to get to the point? It's _those_!" He swept his finger over the three of them, pointing at their brooms. "You and Chang can't have brooms. You're first-years. Just because you're Harry Potter, you think you can get away with special treatment."

"They're Cedric's brooms," said Harry mildly. "Cho and I are just borrowing them."

"Bollocks, Potter!" said Zacharias, almost shouting now. "No one bought that stupid excuse when you got them months ago, and no one's buying it now. You're just using a stupid loophole."

"Maybe instead of complaining about it, you should use that stupid loophole too."

Zacharias was glowering. "That's not… you don't… you can't…"

Cedric realized he'd lost track of Fred and George during the confrontation, and had just a few seconds to feel an impending sense of doom before the snow-tentacle whipped over his head, winding around Zacharias's waist and dragging him, screaming, into the gaping, fanged mouth of the snow-beast.

Fred and George were standing next to it, their wands out, muttering incantations around their huge grins.

Zacharias's screams were muffled as the mouth closed, and the snowman made a distinct burping noise. Fred and George backed up, wearing identical looks of anticipation. Cedric could see the middle section of the snow-monster moving, shaking, snow falling off in clumps.

Then Zacharias was expelled, forcibly, from the snow-monster's lower section, on the opposite side as the mouth. The noise was loud, and like a burp but much more juvenile.

Fred and George high-fived each other, then collapsed with laughter. That pretty much set the match to the kindling, and by the time Cedric started chuckling, everyone else was too, including the Hufflepuffs.

Cedric barely registered it as Zacharias picked himself up, shaking with anger, and pointed his wand at them. "You… you…" his voice was hoarse and very, very ugly.

Cedric rolled to his feet, adrenaline shooting through him. Zacharias wasn't aiming at Fred and George. He was aiming at Harry, Cedric and Cho.

"Watch out!" It was an exclamation from someone behind him. One of the Hufflepuffs. Cedric barely heard it. He was reaching for his wand.

Too slow. Zacharias was bringing his arm down, twisting his wand. He was pointing at Cho.

"_Anteocul –_" Zacharias's incantation was interrupted by a flash of light that sent him stumbling back, wide-eyed and reeling, as the spell died on the tip of his wand.

Cho, who had started to dive out of the way, looked up at Harry. Cedric followed her eyes and saw Harry, standing with his wand out, his arm just completing a slashing, twisting motion.

No one said anything. Harry Potter lowered his wand, his eyes wide.

Cedric exchanged a wary look with Cho. The same thought was obviously running through her mind. _He just blocked a spell. That's… he shouldn't know how to do that. I don't know how to do that_. Cedric's mind was trying to process the implications. _Maybe we can ask everyone not to say anything. Except, damn, Smith… can't ask him, he'll tell for sure that way. Blackmail? Anything I can use_? If he'd had time to think about it, Cedric would have been a little shocked how fast he'd considered that.

"Harry Potter."

And just like that, it didn't matter anymore. The voice was an adult one.

Cedric looked over his shoulder. It was one of the Aurors who shadowed Professor Doge, the female of the pair. She was shimmering into view, her form turning gradually from a chameleon-like transparency back to normal.

She was pointing at Harry, gesturing. "Come with me. We're going to the Headmaster's office. Right now."

Harry pulled himself to his feet – he'd freed his wand from his robes from a sitting position in about a second, Cedric noted absently – and looked at his friends.

"Not them, just you." The Auror's voice was implacable.

Harry turned to them. "You know what to do." He caught Cedric and Cho with a meaningful gaze.

"Right now means right now," said the Auror, and took a step forward.

"All right, all right," said Harry. He started walking towards the castle, and the Auror put a hand on his shoulder, walking behind him. It wasn't a friendly gesture, like a friend would do. It looked more like someone leading a prisoner.

Cedric reached out and took Cho's hand as they watched Harry walk towards the castle, the Auror at his side, both shapes gradually getting smaller as they faded into the snow.

* * *

><p><strong>Good reviews keep me motivated, reviews with solid andor insightful feedback keep the story good, and all reviews are very much appreciated.**


	4. Chapter 3 - The Wardrobe

****Author's note: A big thanks to my betas, Shaydrall and Alyksandr, for their work on this as well as their help tightening up previous chapters.****

****The end of this chapter and the beginning of this one have been revised - Harry no longer uses a nonverbal Shield Charm against Smith. (He's advanced, but he's not _that _advanced.) There are a few other changes/fixes.****

_Last updated: 12/5/14 _

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3 – The Wardrobe<strong>

Harry's mind was racing as the Auror led him through the Entrance Hall. She'd paused very briefly during the walk to shoot an ethereal, silvery hawk in the castle's direction, but aside from that, she seemed determined to convey Harry to the Headmaster's office without stopping, and without talking.

"Look, can you tell me what this is about?"

"What's your name?"

"Would you mind stopping for a second so I can tie my shoe?"

All were met with silence.

Harry started to panic a little as they crossed the threshold into the Great Hall. He stopped walking, and the Auror glowered at him, starting to raise her wand.

"Just listen to me," said Harry, holding up his hands. "You went to Hogwarts, right?" It was a guess, but an educated one. "You know what this place is like. You walk me through the Great Hall like I'm under arrest and by the time we're done with whatever this is, the story will be that I dropped Zacharias Smith from my broom and impaled him on the school gates."

The Auror raised her eyebrow. She looked at him, her stare penetrating. Harry crossed his fingers.

"You walk ahead of me," she said at last. "I'll meet you in the hallway. You do anything I don't like, start running, start shouting, anything, and I'll put you in a Full Body-Bind in front of all your friends."

Harry let out a breath. "Thanks."

She pursed her lips. "Elaine Savage. Gryffindor, class of eighty-two." Harry nodded, turned to go. "I was watching you fly, before." She pointed a finger at him, almost accusingly. "You try out for Quidditch next year, got it?"

"Got it," said Harry, nodding weakly.

"Good," she said. "Now go."

Harry walked into the Great Hall, trying to act naturally. He responded to a few older Gryffindors who threw greetings his way, and he walked slowly, keeping an easy smile on his face. Internally, he was the opposite of calm. _She was just _there_. Was she watching me? Seems like it. How long? Just today? The whole year? No, I've seen her and the other one guarding Doge together. Only sometimes? Why now?_

He waited for Savage just outside the Hall. She caught up with him, then jerked her head in the direction of the Headmaster's office.

"You're one of those long-winded types, aren't you?" murmured Harry. She didn't even twitch.

Harry didn't _seriously _consider running, but the thought did cross his mind for a fleeting moment. He couldn't imagine he was going to get a detention – if anything, he'd expect to get points for stopping Smith from cursing Cho – rather, he suspected he was in extra-scholastic trouble, something that went beyond Hogwarts. If the Ministry was responsible for Harry's memory problems, they'd undoubtedly be concerned that he'd blocked a spell as competently as he had. He'd only _read _about blocking spells a few weeks ago.

The male Auror was waiting for them at the base of the stairway to the Headmaster's office. He was no more expressive than Savage, but he was leaning against the wall with his eyes closed and his arms crossed.

He opened his eyes as Harry approached.

"Savage," said the male Auror.

"Proudfoot," replied Savage evenly.

Harry felt an impulse to bellow "Proud_feet_!" but thankfully squashed it. He'd gotten better at identifying, controlling, and integrating moments when his "other self," as Cedric called it, asserted itself. Given the situation, Harry didn't want to have to explain yet another thing he'd done that he didn't understand himself.

Savage walked to the stone gargoyle and tapped it with her wand. "Auror Savage, override."

The gargoyle sprung to the side adroitly, revealing a winding stone staircase. Harry walked forward, though he didn't have much of a choice with Savage leading the way and Proudfoot behind him. As they crowded into the stairwell, Savage murmured something inaudible and tapped the wall. The staircase started rotating with a soft grinding sound, stone on stone.

Harry's view of the Headmaster's office was obscured by Savage's robes, but when she stepped aside, Harry almost stumbled as he looked around.

The room was large, circular, and strange. Harry's eyes traveled over the walls. There were dozens of portraits, men and women of age and dignified stature. Most were asleep. Harry noticed that one was covered by a heavy black velvet drape. The centerpiece of the room was an enormous, claw-footed desk, the style and construction of which reminded Harry vaguely of the Mirror of Erised. Both, perhaps, were part of the castle's history. He looked around. Shelves, tables, and four separate bookcases. One table had what looked at first glance like a terrarium, but when Harry looked closer, it was actually the mouth of a river in miniature – sand, trees, rocks, green grass waving gently in a non-existent breeze, all replicated in intricate detail. The river spilled over the edge of the table, the flowing water vanishing in midair about halfway to the floor.

Harry could have spent the rest of the day just looking around the room if he hadn't been about to have a panic attack.

His eyes focused on the desk, and the man sitting behind it.

Aberforth Dumbledore was still, but not calm. Though he was dressed in formal robes, everything about him, from the somewhat ragged way his beard framed his face to the way the sleeves of his robes were sun-bleached and worn, screamed "rough around the edges." He narrowed his eyes, looking over his spectacles at the intruders into his domain.

"Auror Savage, Auror Proudfoot, and Harry Potter walk into my office. Could be it's the start of a joke, but somehow I don't think I'm going to be laughing." Aberforth steepled his fingers and leaned back in his massive chair.

"Headmaster," said Savage, tilting her head fractionally. "My apologies. We require the temporary use of your office. May we use your Floo?"

Aberforth smiled, but it was a bitter one. "I suppose it's decent of you to pretend I have a say in the matter."

Proudfoot walked to the ornate fireplace, tossed in a pinch of silvery powder, and green flame sprung up. "Ministry of Magic, Auror Office." He stepped through without a backward glance.

In the ensuing silence, Harry learned two things about himself. First, that he really didn't like standing still. And second, that he was a born contrarian. It was so blindingly obvious that he was supposed to crack, to break down and demand to know what was going on, to panic and say something that would get him in trouble – but that would be the obvious thing to do, and so Harry focused, very hard, on looking placid. It wasn't easy to look like you hadn't a care in the world when you were, in fact, sweating through your winter cloak, but it gave him something to do.

Surprisingly, it was the Headmaster who broke the long moment of stillness. He stood up. Walked to the window. Clasped his hands behind his back. Harry could see his reflection in the windowpane. He looked a little wistful.

"You know, there used to be days when I actually enjoyed this job," said Aberforth. When he turned around, he was all business. "Now, one of you needs to tell me what the bloody hell is going on. I don't have the patience for regulations and proper channels."

Savage glanced at the Floo and looked thoughtful for a moment. "As you know, Headmaster, we were assigned to Hogwarts to keep an eye on Elphias Doge. He's a known criminal, after all, and it would be completely irresponsible to let him teach a class full of children without supervision." She glanced at Harry for a moment. "What you weren't told was that we had a…secondary objective."

"Of course you did," muttered the Headmaster. "And we won't even get in to your third objective of making sure to subtly remind everyone that the Ministry walks tall and carries a big stick."

"The Minister was concerned that Mr. Potter might have been in contact with, or unknowingly influenced by… undesirable elements," she continued smoothly, apparently ignoring Aberforth's comments. "We were instructed to observe Mr. Potter for signs of anything unusual."

"And?" asked Aberforth gruffly.

"Let's wait for the others," said Savage. "I prefer not to repeat myself."

Aberforth blew out a breath, his beard fluttering. "Bureaucrats." It wasn't a complimentary statement. He turned to Harry. "And what about you, boy? Anything to say for yourself?"

Harry found himself bristling a little at the "boy" comment. He smoothed his features into an expression of mild curiosity as he looked up at the Headmaster. "I honestly have no idea why I'm here, sir. Unless you're going to personally award me points for stopping a fellow student from getting hit with an antler-growing hex?"

Aberforth pursed his lips, then turned to Savage.

She shrugged. "Like I said, I'd rather only explain it once."

At that moment, the fireplace belched green flame, and four men stepped out, one after another.

The first one through was Auror Proudfoot, and the three that followed, aside from the fact that they all wore formal robes, couldn't have been more different. The first was a broad-shouldered, powerfully built man with a tawny mane of hair like a lion's. The second man was tall and thin and dressed impeccably, but had an air of gauntness, of brittleness. Bringing up the rear was a short, portly man in a pinstriped cloak. He clutched a lime-green bowler hat against his chest, and he had a gold pocket watch chain dangling from his waistcoat. He looked like someone dressed as a dandy, who only knew what a dandy was via rough description.

The last one through zeroed in on Harry right away, breaking into a jovial smile. "Harry Potter, in the flesh! Excellent to meet you." He walked over to Harry, moving in for a vigorous handshake. "I know, I know, not the best circumstances for a meeting, but it couldn't be helped! I'm Cornelius Fudge, Minister for Magic."

"Hello," said Harry, a bit taken aback by the flurry of activity. Even as Fudge had introduced himself, the lion-haired man had cornered Savage, interrogating her in a low voice. The third man simply stood close to the fireplace, not looking at anyone in particular.

"I'm sure you're wondering what all this is about," said Fudge, still with that big smile plastered on his face. "Not to worry, not to worry. We'll have this all cleared up in a jiffy."

He seemed to notice Harry's eyes traveling around the room. "Of course!" said Fudge. "How inconsiderate of me. Introductions all around!" He drew Harry forward, where the Ministry men were congregating into a loose semicircle. "You've already met Aurors Savage and Proudfoot, of course, and this fine fellow is their boss, Rufus Scrimgeour, Head of the Auror Office."

None of the three individuals spared Harry so much as a glance. Either Fudge wasn't aware of the tension in the room, or he was doing a very good job of pretending it didn't exist.

"And _this _gentleman is Bartemius Crouch, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot." Fudge gestured with his bowler cap in the direction of the tall, thin man standing off by himself. "He's here in case we encounter any, er… legal difficulties."

Harry was still trying to get his bearings, but given the titles of the three new individuals, he was pretty sure his best course of action was to say and do absolutely nothing until he was asked a direct question. He simply nodded as the Minister led him around the room.

Scrimgeour broke away from the two Aurors and strode over to Harry, standing in front of him. "Your wand, Mr. Potter."

Harry looked around, trying to get a read on the room, and didn't like what he saw. He didn't have any allies here. The only possible wedge he'd seen was the animosity between the Headmaster and the Aurors. _He doesn't like the Ministry interfering with Hogwarts_, thought Harry, shrugging mentally. _Well, it's worth a shot_.

He turned to Aberforth. "Headmaster? I haven't had a chance to read up on the finer points of wizarding law. Am I required to give up my wand?"

The Headmaster frowned at Harry. "The Ministry has a broad range of powers when it comes to educational oversight." An ambivalent answer if Harry had ever heard one, and Aberforth's expression seemed to say _you're on your own, kid_.

"Now, really!" said Fudge. "This is just an informal, friendly meeting. No need to start off on the wrong foot." He glanced at Harry somewhat apprehensively.

Harry took a deep breath. _Pick your battles_. He reached into his robes, and didn't miss the way the Aurors subtly tensed. He drew out his wand, slowly, and held it out.

Scrimgeour plucked it from his hand and held it up, drawing his own wand. He held the tip against Harry's wand. "_Prior Incantato!_" he said firmly.

A ghostly image erupted from the point where the wands met. It was blurry, indistinct. Scrimgeour and the Aurors leaned in, studying it closely as a vague cloud of smoke seemed to solidify into a shape, only to be dashed into dust motes, like someone blowing on a column of smoke.

"Not a very impressive block," said Scrimgeour. He turned to Savage. "You say it stopped a low-level hex?"

"_Anteoculatia_, to be precise. The antler-growing hex," said Savage. "The reason I called it in is the _way _he cast it." She nodded meaningfully at Harry. "He reacted on reflex. Implying practice. Implying a _lot _of practice."

"You're positive?" said Scrimgeour. "That's a fairly subjective and subtle detail to notice."

Savage looked a bit put out. "I'm trained to notice exactly those kinds of details, sir. As you well know."

Scrimgeour grunted. "I suppose so." He waved his wand. "_Deletrius_." The ghostly image wavered, and dissolved into nothing. The Head Auror fixed Harry with a level, steady look. "Explain yourself, Mr. Potter."

"I just reacted. Stuff like that just happens around me," said Harry. He tried to keep his voice steady and calm. "Since I can remember, really. I'll get really stressed and then something odd happens, like my hair growing back after a bad haircut, or getting onto a roof to escape a bunch of bullies and having no idea how I got there."

The Aurors exchanged a long glance with their boss.

"Accidental magic," said Scrimgeour. He seemed to be weighing the phrase. "I suppose it's possible. But a blocking a spell is a deliberate bit of magic. Not something a scared child is likely to produce on a whim."

"I've read about blocking spells," said Harry irritably, trying not to let the 'child' bit get to him. "It's not complicated, at least for anything Smith is likely to know. It just takes good reflexes, good timing, and practice." He jerked his head towards Savage. "She was watching me fly, before, so she can tell you about that."

"Mr. Potter is quite advanced for his age," said Aberforth, breaking in quietly. He stood a bit off to the side, leaning against his desk. "Flitwick, in particular, is quite pleased with the boy's progress in Charms."

Scrimgeour turned to the Headmaster, arching an eyebrow. "And the fact that blocking spells isn't even mentioned in the first year Defense curriculum?"

"It's not a crime to read ahead," said Aberforth, shrugging. "The boy's mother was a bloody prodigy, and I personally saw James Potter do things with a wand that would take the combined efforts of a lunatic asylum to think up. It's not a stretch to imagine the lad's inherited some of that."

"Should I take it as suspicious, Aberforth," said Scrimgeour, "that _you_ of all people are coming to Mr. Potter's defense?"

Harry noted, as the confrontation played out in front of him, that Scrimgeour, not Fudge, was clearly dominating the meeting. In fact, Fudge was looking between Harry, Aberforth, and Scrimgeour, his brow furrowed, shaking his head a little.

The Headmaster scowled and crossed his arms. "Take it however you want, Rufus. It's my job to look out for _all _my students."

"So," said Scrimgeour, turning back to Harry, who couldn't help but shrink a little at the intense scrutiny. "A talented student goes a step further, brought on by the focus and stress of defending a comrade." He paused deliberately. "No, I don't think so. It's possible. But I have doubts." He jerked his head towards Proudfoot. "Proceed."

Fudge took a step forward. "Now _really_, Rufus, is this necessary?"

"Need I remind you, Minister, just _whom _we suspect of interfering with Mr. Potter?" Scrimgeour flicked his wand at the wall, and the black velvet covering one of the portraits dropped to the floor. The man in the portrait was sleeping, and looked quite a bit like the Headmaster, except his beard was whiter, his entire countenance more dignified. He was gently snoring, half-moon spectacles threatening to slip off his face, which made the fact that Fudge turned ashen and backed up a step fairly puzzling to Harry.

"I've never seen that man before in my life," said Harry. "Who is he?"

"My brother," said Aberforth curtly.

"A very dangerous, very clever old wizard who's a constant thorn in our side, even from another country. And a man who, once upon a time, saw to it that you were placed with your aunt and uncle, completely removed from our society," said Scrimgeour.

"Now, Harry, you have to understand, we're looking out for you here," said Fudge, instantly shifting into an approximation of a soothing, comforting smile. "We just want to make sure _that man _didn't…" he trailed off.

"Influence you," finished Scrimgeour.

"I told you, I've never seen him before," said Harry. He was starting to get a nasty feeling about the direction of the conversation.

"Of course you haven't!" said Fudge. "But, Harry, _that man _is a powerful wizard. You could be Confunded and not even know it."

"Does he _look_ Confunded, Fudge?" said Aberforth.

"Well, no, not as such," said Fudge, hands fluttering in consternation. "Best to be sure, all the same. Precautions. Procedure. Can't be helped."

"Enough of this," snapped Scrimgeour. "Do it, Proudfoot."

Harry barely had time to brace himself. Auror Proudfoot stepped forward, his wand leveled at Harry. Harry felt a moment of panic, and a strong urge to rush forward and punch the Auror in the face.

"_Legilimens!_" cried Proudfoot.

The world melted away. Harry was vaguely aware that he'd crumpled to the floor, but his senses were assaulted by a stream of input. Memories, vivid and quick. He was four, and Dudley was stealing his food. _Flick_. He was six, staring at the ceiling of his cupboard, listening to the family open presents on Petunia's birthday. _Flick_. He was eight, and at school, and he had a sinking feeling that he shouldn't have done so well on that last test. _Flick_. He was ten, making breakfast before anyone else was up, shivering, moving the pan aside so he could warm his hands over the heating element. _Flick_. He was huddled in a rainstorm, the massive figure of Hagrid bracketing the door of the little shack on the island. _Flick. Flick. Flick._

Harry's life, in scrapbook form, bite-sized and fast-forwarded.

He gradually became aware of voices. Harry's face was pressed up against the thick carpet in the Headmaster's office.

"... assure you, it was quite safe…"

"… could have used a more delicate hand. We don't want…"

"…seems to have led an unassuming life with his aunt and uncle, though they seemed to be rather beastly people, even for Muggles."

"So the Headmaster was essentially correct, and this was simply a case of a talented boy being talented?"

"My probe was _very_ thorough, sir. The boy's had a boring life, and anyone popping up and introducing him to magic would have stood out like a signal fire. He didn't even know wizards existed until he got his letter. And let me tell you, whoever was in charge of _that _little misadventure made a real dog's dinner of it."

"I'll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself, Proudfoot, and leave the business of running my school to me."

Harry blinked. His mouth was open against the carpet. It tasted…fuzzy. He slowly got to his feet. Everyone was looking at him, with expressions ranging from Crouch's complete lack of interest to Fudge's nervousness to what might have been a quick flash of concern from Savage.

"Ah, welcome back, my boy," said Fudge. He took a tentative step forward. "You, er, had a bit of a bad reaction to that spell. Happens sometimes. Quite unfortunate, quite unfortunate. I think the best thing for you would be to head back to your dormitory and have a bit of a kip. There's a good lad."

"Right," said Harry slowly.

He turned to go, but Scrimgeour's voice stopped him. "Your wand, Mr. Potter." Scrimgeour handed Harry the holly and phoenix feather wand. Instead of letting go at once, he held the tip a moment, locking eyes with harry. "By the way, everything said and done in this room is off-limits for discussion with anyone else. Barty?"

Crouch roused himself, taking out his wand. He swept it in a wide circle, and a bright tongue of flame sprung out, running laps around the room until the walls and ceiling were covered in fiery lines, like latitude and longitude on a globe. Harry felt a brief sensation of pressure as the lines flared once, and then faded.

"As Chief Warlock, I affirm this meeting to be a closed side session of the Wizengamot." Crouch's voice was a strong baritone, quite at odds with his thin, impeccable figure. "Let all those present keep their own council of the matters discussed."

Fudge started to usher Harry out of the office. Harry, in a daze, let him. "Don't mind the others, Harry. Just a bit of bureaucracy. You'll keep this to yourself, won't you? No need to give anyone else the wrong impression." He shook Harry's hand. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Harry. A real pleasure. Don't think we don't appreciate you helping us out today. Why, in a few years, the Ministry might be able to return the favor! You might find yourself in line for a very prestigious internship. Something to think on, Harry."

Fudge had almost maneuvered Harry out the door when the Headmaster's voice stopped them.

"Potter," said Aberforth. The corners of his mouth twitched up. "Ten points to Gryffindor for defending a friend."

Harry looked him in eye, nodded, and left.

He barely noticed the ride down the stone staircase. His thoughts were tangled, disjointed. He wasn't sure if it was the aftereffects of the mind probe, or the fact that he was generally off-balance, but it was taking him an inordinate amount of time to feel anything. His emotions eventually started trickling in as he made his way to the library. Anger at having his mind violated. Confusion that they'd apparently missed the big secret, whatever it was. Resentment at being treated like a very stupid child.

And then, practically from one step to the next, everything clicked into place. That thing the Ministry had been watching for, that they apparently feared enough that merely blocking a spell warranted the presence of three high level Ministerial staff, including the Minister – well, it was true, wasn't it? _They don't know, because I don't know_, thought Harry. _The Headmaster's brother _did _influence my life. I can ride a broom, I know more magic than I should, and that's because of him. Has to be. And I can't remember… because they'd have known. That spell read my mind. He must have done something, covered it up, even from me_.

Having come to that conclusion, Harry was still troubled. Messing around with his head, with his _memory_… even to protect him, it didn't sit right. He needed to know more. He needed to _remember_. And the meeting he'd just left had provided him with one fat clue where to start.

One thing he was almost sure of: Privet Drive wasn't where he'd be spending the summer, one way or another.

Harry found himself breaking into a huge smile. He'd been treated badly, had his mind violated, had his wishes run roughshod over by the Ministry, had his Headmaster stand by and watch it happen, and he was _the only one who'd left that meeting knowing more than when he'd entered_.

_Serves those bastards right_, he thought with a rush of vindictive satisfaction.

He entered the library in a very good mood indeed. Cho and Cedric were at one of the tables, heads close together in conversation. They looked worried, tense. They hadn't seen him yet.

Harry schooled his features into a placid, casual expression, slowed his purposeful stride to a mere amble, and started wandering in their direction. _I'm probably a bad person for doing this_, he thought, _but it's not like I'll get another opportunity_.

When he was about fifteen feet away, Cedric heard him coming and glanced up. His eyes went wide, as did Cho's when she looked up. They stood as one and raced to Harry's side.

"Harry," said Cedric, looking relieved and anxious at the same time. "Are you okay? Did they… _do_ anything to you?" His voice dropped to a fearful whisper at the end.

Harry summoned his best 'vaguely puzzled' expression as he regarded them. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"

The twin look of shock and dismay on his best friends' faces was too much; Harry broke down laughing after only a few seconds.

"You… you… " Cho was sputtering, incoherent.

Cedric smacked the side of Harry's head. "That _wasn't funny_."

Harry was laughing too hard to feel it. "I'm sorry," he managed, gasping for air. "But you should have seen your faces."

"We've been _worrying _about you!" said Cho. "We had that whole _thing _planned with the list of trigger words in case you got Obliviated, and the three people we left messages with, and the sock in Cedric's room that he turned inside out to remind us something was wrong in case they got all of us, and you made a _joke _out of it!"

Harry was calming down, just barely chuckling now. "But it was such a _good _joke, Cho. And it's not like I'd get another chance to pull it…"

Cedric smacked his shoulder, but with less conviction. "It was only a _little _funny."

They sat down at the table, Harry sandwiched between his friends. "So, I can't tell you much," said Harry. Experimentally, he opened his mouth to start describing the meeting in the Headmaster's office, and felt a curious sensation, like he was standing on a frozen lake, and had just heard the sharp, musical _twang _of the ice starting to crack.

Harry cocked his head to the side, considering. "I'm not sure what happens, exactly, if I tell you, but at the very least, I'd get in trouble."

"Okay," said Cedric. He started cleaning up their table, and Harry noticed that several of the books had to do with wizarding law. One rather thin tome was the official Hogwarts Charter. Harry was touched by the gesture, and curious just how far Cedric and Cho would have gone if he'd come back from the meeting with more memory problems.

"I have a clue now, though," said Harry. "There are like sixteen reasons why we can't talk about it much, including the fact that an invisible Auror could be listening to everything we say. So for now, just know that I think things are good, in general. That, and I…I wanted you to know that I really appreciate you guys looking out for me."

"Of course, Harry," said Cho, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Cedric nodded the same way.

"Right." Harry cleared his throat and tried again. "Right. Anyway. Tell me exactly what happened with Smith after I left. Did the snow-monster do anything else? Does he think he's about to be interrogated by Aurors? Tell me everything!"

The three friends sat close together, talking in low voices of nothing consequential until Madam Pince kicked them out an hour later.

* * *

><p>The Hufflepuff Basement had low ceilings and lots of earth tones. Circular windows studded the walls, and sunlight filtered in, even though it was cloudy and snowing outside. One wall was dominated by a roaring fireplace, and copper lamps hung from the ceiling. It was almost aggressively cozy.<p>

Harry, Cho, and Cedric sat in front of the fireplace, surrounded by torn wrapping paper.

"I thought we had a deal, Harry," said Cho. She was holding up a pair of fur-lined gloves, shaking them in Harry's direction.

"They're not from _me_, Cho. They're from _Hedwig_."

The owl in question was currently perched on Cho's shoulder. Hedwig gave a short bark of agreement.

"You two are ganging up on me," said Cho. She was frowning, but Harry saw through it to the ghost of a smile in her expression. "You weren't supposed to get me anything, that was the deal we had when you got the brooms. Now you're just cheating."

"Cho," said Harry. "Are you really going to refuse a gift from Hedwig? I think she'd be pretty upset. And it's not a big gift, just a pair of gloves. I overhe – _Hedwig_ overheard you tell Marietta that you hated how cold your hands got in the winter."

Cho scowled at him for a second, then turned to Hedwig, ruffling her feathers. "Well, you're a very thoughtful owl, Hedwig."

"I notice that Hedwig got _me _a Kwikspell course," said Cedric dryly, holding up the thin packet. "And it looks like she's very helpfully highlighted Lesson One, 'Holding Your Wand: Some Useful Tips'. Quite the sarcastic owl you've got there, Harry."

Harry ran a hand through his hair, hiding a smile. "Well, I reckon Hedwig's still a bit sore over the whole Engorgement Charm incident. Can't blame her for holding a grudge. Long memories, owls."

"I thought that was elephants," said Cedric.

"Either way," said Harry. "And you'll notice that I got you something, too."

"I did notice that." Cedric hefted the dark green case and peered inside. "A broomstick-servicing kit! Thanks, Harry."

"You're welcome." Harry felt warm and lazy. He leaned back against an overstuffed armchair. A beat-up record player in the corner was playing jazzy versions of Christmas standards by a brass quintet. There wasn't anyone else in the room. Three half-finished mugs of hot chocolate sat by the fire, keeping warm. It was a good day.

"Who's that from, Harry?" asked Cho, pointing to Harry's last present. It was long and thin, and wrapped in newspaper.

"It's from Hagrid," said Harry. He unwrapped it, and uncovered a beautifully carved wooden flute. It was roughly cut and unvarnished, but the craftsmanship was superb. "I feel bad," he said, balancing it on his knee. "Hagrid showed me all around Diagon Alley, and I haven't visited him at all this year."

"No time like the present," said Cedric cheerfully, hopping to his feet. "Let's pop over to the kitchens and take him some food."

"Hang on," said Cho. She reached behind her and came out with two envelopes. "I haven't given you two your gifts." She held them out, one in each hand.

Harry took one, ran his finger under the seal, opened it, and started to read. After a few moments, he looked up. Cho was looking at the two of them nervously.

"We're going to Quidditch camp?" said Cedric, breaking into a big, goofy grin.

"Technically, it's not just Quidditch. It's all kinds of broom sports. And you'll have to buy an international Portkey; they're kind of pricey." Cho still looked nervous. "My parents are sending me as a reward for getting into Ravenclaw. It's a week at the end of the summer, and I thought, you know, the three of us…"

"I think it's brilliant, Cho," said Harry.

Cedric dropped the letter and drew Cho to her feet, going in for a hug. Harry saw Cho's surprised look melt into a pleased smile with a bit of a blush as she returned it.

"I definitely want to go," said Harry. "I really don't know what's going on with me this summer. I know I haven't been able to talk about it, but if I'm right, I can probably go."

Cedric pulled back from the hug and looked at Harry. "I wouldn't think your aunt and uncle would go for that," he said carefully.

"No, they wouldn't." Harry gave Cedric a meaningful look.

"Right." Cedric stood up. "Come on, then. Hagrid's, more food, maybe a little flying before it gets dark, Christmas dinner in the Great Hall, then we come back here and hang out. It'll be the best Christmas ever."

Harry couldn't argue with that.

* * *

><p>Defense Against the Dark Arts was held in a classroom on the third floor, and it wasn't Harry's favorite. Doge was an indifferent teacher at best, and for a dangerous, edgy criminal who was constantly being observed by Aurors, he was remarkably boring in class. He taught in a calm, even drone and he didn't get frustrated when the class was having trouble with a spell, but he didn't seem to particularly care when they did something right, either.<p>

Harry was sitting in the back of the classroom, bored. His textbook was open to the section describing the theoretical underpinning of the Disarming Charm, but he wasn't looking at it. He'd read it ages ago. Instead, he was looking over at his classmates.

Cormac McLaggen held court in the center of the class, the rest of the Gryffindor first year boys surrounding him like lemmings. Harry shared a dormitory with those four, but that was about all he shared. They were polite, they talked sometimes, they said hello at meals – but they were indifferent to Hogwarts.

It was something Harry couldn't wrap his mind around. Even Cho and Cedric, who'd grown up knowing about the ancient, magical castle, had been caught up in Harry's enthusiasm. You could find something amazing just by _walking around_. And they did. Hardly a week went by when the three of them didn't find some new quirk, some fascinating, small secret. A mirror in the fourth-floor boy's bathroom that read you your height and weight. A row of suits of armor that produced different musical tones when you tapped their helmets with a wand. A staircase that led, impossibly, from the east section of the third floor to the west section of the third floor, except for a fifteen-minute window every day where it led to a balcony with a breathtaking view of the sun rising over the Black Lake.

And all of it was wasted on his dorm-mates. They treated _magic_ like it was _work_. They groaned and griped at practicing spells, at learning theory that would help them understand, and thus be better at spells.

They learned by rote, not by wonder. And for that, Harry was forever divorced from them.

Harry looked up as Professor Doge's voice cut across the classroom.

"That's it for the day. Next week, we'll begin reviewing material for the end-of-term test." He had to raise his voice over the scraping of chairs and low hum of conversation that sprung up. "Homework for the weekend: an essay, to be handed in Monday, on theoretical uses of the Disarming Charm beyond its accepted, practical use. Read the chapter again if you're stuck; there are hints in the theory."

Harry scooped his textbook into his bag and stood, joining the crowd as they filed from the classroom.

"Mr. Potter, stick around for a minute," called Professor Doge.

Harry felt like a boulder in a stream as he stopped mid-stride and the flow of students rushed around him. He waited until the classroom emptied and then turned to Professor Doge, who, as always, was flanked by the ever-silent Aurors Proudfoot and Savage, who stood a respectful distance away, but were keenly watching as Harry approached.

"Yes, Professor?" said Harry, adjusting his book bag over his shoulder as it started to slip.

"I wanted to return your last essay personally, Mr. Potter," said Doge, reaching into his desk and pulling out a roll of parchment. "As I've noted on your work before, your conclusions are good, but you have a tendency to fail to show your work. One well-researched and well-supported argument is worth ten educated guesses. I had to mark you down for it, this time."

"Right," said Harry. He frowned. He didn't obsess over his marks, but off the top of his head, he couldn't recall Doge getting on his case for this before.

Doge handed him the parchment roll. "Please pay strict attention to my corrections, and I think you'll understand why I had to give you the mark I did."

"Of course, Professor," said Harry. He took the parchment and slipped it into his bag. He was very aware of the Aurors watching him.

"Well?" said Doge as Harry dawdled. "Off with you, Potter."

Harry left, already thinking ahead to History of Magic and what homework he could get done from other classes while Binns droned on.

It wasn't until after dinner that Harry remembered Professor Doge's words. He was sitting at a table in the Gryffindor Common Room, reaching into his bag, just about to start his Transfiguration homework, when the roll of parchment slipped out.

Frowning, Harry unrolled it. Professor Doge's comments were written in the margins in an untidy scrawl of red ink. They were unremarkable, and amounted to what he'd said in the classroom: Harry needed to be more diligent and methodical.

It was the grade that caught his eye. _C+_ was written in large text in the bottom corner. _That's not a standard grade_, thought Harry. He drummed his fingers on the table. Something didn't add up. Normally, this would be the kind of thing Cho or Cedric could help with, but they weren't here. _This whole "different Houses" thing is pretty inconvenient_.

Harry looked around the room, zeroing in on Katie Bell, who was curled up in a chair reading a worn, dark green tome called _Birds of Friendship and Flame: A Phoenix Compendium_. Harry wandered over to her.

"Hey, Harry," said Katie amicably, glancing over the top of the book.

"Hey, Katie. What're you reading?"

She hefted the book, showing off the title. "Angelina and Alicia were telling me this Hogwarts story about how there's a wild phoenix that lives in the Forbidden Forest. I kind of thought they were messing with me, so I got this book to prove them wrong."

Harry sat cross-legged in front of her. "And?"

She held out her hand, palm down, and rocked it side to side. "Hard to say. Phoenixes are really incredibly magical, and wild ones aren't found unless they want to be. People say there are _werewolves _in the Forbidden Forest, though, so it's probably just a stupid story."

Harry hummed. He held out his essay. "What do you make of this, Katie?" He indicated the bottom of the parchment.

"That's weird." She leaned forward. "I don't think I've ever gotten a mark like that. What's it stand for? Clueless?"

"Ha ha. No, it's a Muggle thing. Doge has never marked your stuff with Muggle grades?"

"No. He's a bit dotty, though. Maybe he just forgot. Is C+ a good Muggle mark?"

Light bulb, head, illumination. Harry bolted to his feet. "Uh. About average. Anyway, thanks Katie."

He barely heard her answer as he ran up the stairs to the first-year boy's dormitory. Thankfully, no one else was there. He climbed onto his bed and yanked the curtains shut, then pulled out his wand.

All it had taken was hearing it out loud. It was pathetically simple, and Harry was torn between being offended that Doge thought it needed to be that easy, and embarrassed that it had taken him that long.

C+. _See plus_.

Harry tapped the parchment three times in a measured, even beat, and on the last one, spoke. "_Aparecium_."

Letters faded into view, tucked in the lower left-hand corner, in the same handwriting and red ink as the notes.

_Mr. Potter,_

_For reasons that should be obvious, I could not approach you directly._

_Before she died, your mother left this in my possession. I pass it on to you, in the hopes that you will use it well._

_Finite this parchment, and keep it to yourself._

_-Elphias Doge_

Harry sat on his bed, holding the parchment, unmoving, for about a minute.

"Okay…" he said out loud. He thought about it. Doge had been a member of the Order. The Headmaster's brother Albus had been in charge of the Order. The Ministry was deathly afraid of Albus Dumbledore. Harry was pretty sure that Albus was responsible for Harry's memory loss, and only a little less sure that it had been to help him, rather than to hurt him. That meant that Doge was probably, but not definitely on his side.

"Okay," Harry said again, a little bit more confidently. He held his wand against the parchment. "_Finite Incantatem_."

The parchment flexed, shuddered, and then, in a flash of light, transformed into a small, leather-bound notebook. It was worn, obviously handled many times, but treated well. Harry flipped it open and looked at the inside cover. He was already pretty sure of what he'd find, but the reality of it made him tremble.

_This journal is the property of Lily Evans_

Harry's eyes traced the neat, feminine handwriting the way a man dying of thirst in the desert would stare at a mirage of an oasis.

When his roommates came into the dorm an hour later, Harry didn't even hear them. He was devouring the journal. His mum had started it in her fourth year, and at first it was mundane, everyday life stuff. Still fascinating, if a bit unsettling at times – it was a candid look into the mind of a fourteen-year-old girl who was also his mum, and that was…strange. But around sixth year, it started to get very, very interesting. Apparently Lily had developed interests in magical theory, Potions, and history.

There was too much to absorb. Homemade spells, started, revised, then abandoned. Potions recipes that were so far above Harry's level he couldn't even understand half the instructions. Annotated notes about various historical figures – apparently Lily had become fascinated with the history of the Founders. Harry flipped through the journal, skimming from page to page. He'd have time to savor it later, but right now, he was gorging himself. Towards the end of the journal, Lily started making references to her exploration of Hogwarts – and here, Harry felt a warm glow: a connection to his mother, something long wished for but never expected.

His eyes scanned over a section, snagged on something. Just a scribbled note at the bottom of a page.

_Chamber of Secrets – Slytherin_

_Gallery of Refuge – Hufflepuff_

_Room of Requirement – Ravenclaw_

_Hall of Honor – Gryffindor_

Harry's eyebrows climbed his forehead, and he started to read the next few pages very carefully.

Outside, unnoticed, the dark night sky faded into a grey dawn.

* * *

><p>"This is too much."<p>

"I know, I'm getting sick of it."

"Is it honestly that big of a deal?"

"Well… probably. Fred and George aren't helping."

"I think they're just excited about making out like bandits with that betting pool."

The compartment rocked with the motion of the train. Harry and Cedric sat on one side, and Cho, Katie, Angelina, and Alicia sat on the other. Hedwig, that traitorous owl, was perched on Cho's shoulder again.

"Did they really get all the money?" asked Harry. "That doesn't seem quite right."

"Nobody bet on the Defense Professor lasting the whole year," said Cedric. "It's kind of unprecedented. And it _is _a big deal. Did you see how everyone was acting the last few days? As it got closer and closer to the end of term? I think everyone was waiting for Hogwarts to get hit by a meteor or Doge to spontaneously combust."

Alicia lowered her voice. "Do you think it's true, what people are saying? Do you think it means You-Know-Who is really gone?"

Harry didn't miss the way most of their glances flicked his way for a second. He stifled a surge of irritation.

"I don't see how that could be," said Cho. "You-Know-Who was defeated more than ten years ago."

"Maybe the curse just took a while to wear off," said Angelina.

"That whole thing's just a theory," said Cedric dismissively. "Dumbledore's speech to the Wizengamot right after they exiled him spawned all kinds of nutty ideas. My dad says the Ministry still gets letters every day claiming You-Know-Who is back because they broke three teacups in a row or something. If people can blame their bad luck on something, they're going to."

"Well, I wish people would stop talking about it anyway," said Katie, shooting an irritated glare at a pair of third-years who were walking by the compartment. "It's getting annoying."

Suiting action to words, Katie launched into long spiel about Quidditch. She'd followed Harry and Cho's lead, coming back from Christmas with a "gift" for Angelina of Katie's own broom, and had been much less prone to random acts of violence since then. She channeled most of her enthusiasm into her hopes and dreams for the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

"… be _so _much better next year once Harry and I are on the team," Katie was saying.

"I wish you'd stop assuming that, Katie," said Harry.

"No, it's pretty much a given," said Alicia. "Robert Dearborn missed half the practices to study for N.E.W.T.s, and on a good day he was an indifferent Seeker at best. You're a shoo-in, Harry."

"I still wish you'd stop saying it," muttered Harry. "Don't you guys get by now that I'm all about lowering expectations?"

Cho, meanwhile, had opened the window and was leaning outside for the fifth time in order to get a glimpse of the blue-and-bronze paintjob of the Hogwarts Express.

"Stop it, Cho," said Cedric. "We get it, you guys won."

"Knocked off the Slytherins from their perch!" she said, beaming. "Mum's going to be so proud."

"I'm as happy the Slytherins lost as anyone," said Cedric, "but gloating about it isn't going to make it easier to deal with them next year."

"Next year," said Cho, waving her hand, brushing it off like it was some distant point in the future.

The hours slipped by, and before he knew it, Harry found himself back on Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. The crowd's energy was just as intense as it had been in the beginning of the year, but the flavor was different. Here, just before the summer, it was all about partings. Harry found himself struggling to get through the crowd, burdened as he was by Hedwig's cage and his trunk. All over the platform, students were finding parents, were stopping to hug other students goodbye, were scribbling hastily-composed notes and reminders about summer plans.

Harry saw Cho waving him over. He fought his way through the crowd, making his way to her.

"Harry, these are my parents," said Cho, gesturing to the man and woman standing beside her. "Mum, Dad, this is Harry. We're friends. I told you about him, remember?"

"Pleased to meet you," said Harry, sticking his hand out despite his nervousness. Cho's father took it after a moment, shook it once, and dropped it. Cho's parents wore guarded, judging looks that weren't exactly unfriendly, but weren't warm either.

"Our daughter tells us you're a talented student," said Cho's father. Then he smiled, and it was amazing how much the simple expression changed his face. "She also tells us you share her unfortunate enthusiasm for Quidditch."

"I don't know about that," said Harry, matching his smile. "I like flying, but I still barely understand the game, whereas Cho here can tell you every Seeker the Tutshill Tornados have had for the last hundred years."

"Indeed. I hear you're joining her this summer for the Moutohora Macaws Youth Training Camp. You and another boy." He put a peculiar emphasis on the last word that Harry didn't quite understand.

"Er, yes. Cedric. He's… I kind of lost track of him after we said goodbye. He's here somewhere."

Cho slipped out of her mother's reach. "I'll go find him. I want to introduce him to Mum and Dad as well." She lunged forward and threw her arms around Harry. "If I don't see you, bye for now. Have a wonderful summer. Owl me, even if it's just to vent about those lousy Muggles."

"Sure, Cho," said Harry, hugging her back. Her parents were giving him the oddest look, and for some reason Harry was very relieved when Cho pushed away and dashed into the crowd looking for Cedric.

"Um. I should probably go. My uncle isn't very patient."

"It was nice to meet you, Harry Potter," said Cho's father. Both he and Cho's mother had that guarded, weighing look again.

"You too." Harry turned and started making his way to the barrier, trying not to hurry too much.

Vernon Dursley was waiting for him on the other side. It was impossible to miss his uncle, even from a hundred feet away. No one that large and angry-looking could blend into a crowd.

"Hello, Uncle," said Harry, keeping his voice even as he approached.

Vernon ignored him. Didn't even look at him. He just went to the back of the car and opened the boot. He didn't offer to help Harry with his trunk, he just stood there, staring into the middle distance. He was, however, grinding his teeth so hard Harry could practically hear them.

"Okay, then." Harry shrugged, and hoisted his trunk into the boot. He carried Hedwig's cage with him as he slipped into the backseat. A few seconds later, Vernon wedged himself into the driver's seat, saying nothing. He started the car and they started to drive.

Five minutes later, Harry was confused. His uncle still hadn't said anything. On the whole, Harry quite preferred it, but it was still fairly unsettling.

"So… er, have a good year?" asked Harry, feeling supremely weird about trying to have a civil conversation with Vernon.

Again, Vernon didn't say a thing. He did, however, without taking his eyes off the road, reach into his coat, pull out a folded piece of paper, and toss it in the backseat. With a mental shrug, Harry picked it up and opened it. It was written in his own handwriting.

_Hi, Harry! It's me, Harry. I have a bet with my godfather about how confused you'll be when you read this, so even if you have no idea what's up, go ahead and pretend that you'd figured it out when you see him. I have faith, though. I, we, whatever, have changed a lot in the past few years, and I'm betting that'll shine through._

_Don't antagonize the Dursleys too much. They've been well trained to ignore your existence, but I wouldn't push it. Just head to your room when you get home, and all will be made clear._

_Very respectfully,_

_-Harry Potter_

The signature was his, though Harry had never personally thought to make the O in his name a smiley-face.

"Cheeky bastard," said Harry, and he laughed.

Number Four, Privet Drive was exactly as Harry remembered it. The lawn was neatly trimmed, the flowerbeds meticulous. Everything was impeccable and boring. Harry retrieved his trunk, and laboriously maneuvered it inside as he balanced Hedwig's cage in his free hand. Petunia and Dudley were in the living room watching television. Neither of them so much as turned to look at him. Vernon stomped in behind him, brushing past Harry to join his family in the living room, where they loudly started talking about Vernon's trip to London to buy Dudley a new bicycle.

Harry felt a strong urge to run into the living room and start dancing around madly to see if he could get a reaction out of them, but quashed it. Instead, he dragged his trunk upstairs, made a second trip down for Hedwig's cage, and opened the door of the smallest bedroom. The doorknob resisted him for a second, and then clicked open.

Harry's room was exactly as he remembered it – mostly bare, devoid of possessions – except for one massive difference. Against the side of the room, practically taking up the entire wall, was a huge antique wardrobe. The wood was dark, and so lacquered it was almost reflective. It was tall, and the outward-swinging doors had ornate brass handles on them.

As Harry walked towards it, it evoked something in him. He couldn't remember ever seeing it before, but something about it was _incredibly _familiar.

"I think I see what's going on here," he said. He took Hedwig's cage and set her on the bed, which, as Harry touched it, seemed to be _much _more comfortable than he remembered.

He went to the wardrobe and opened it. The coats seemed to go on forever; it was too dark to see the end of them.

Harry rolled his eyes. "Oh, come _on_." Muttering to himself, he climbed in and started brushing the coats aside. He wasn't surprised when the doors clicked closed behind him. It was almost completely dark. Harry waited. His breathing felt very loud in the enclosed space. He was starting to get a bit worried, and was just about to start blindly groping his way forward when the door in front of him opened.

Warding his eyes against the sudden light, Harry blinked and stepped forward onto a beach. The moon was startlingly bright, but most of the illumination came from a series of torches planted in the white sand. The air was warm and dry, and smelled like something Harry couldn't identify, but again carried a strong sense of familiarity.

It was also snowing.

Waiting for him as Harry stepped out of the wardrobe was a…thing. His top half was a grinning, dark-haired man who was sporting a pair of horns on his forehead, and his bottom half was a pair of goat legs with cloven feet. He was holding an umbrella, which was covered with a light dusting of snow.

He tipped the umbrella jauntily. "Hello, Harry! I'm Mr. Tumnus!"

Harry stood stock-still for about three seconds. His eyes narrowed. Then he pulled his wand out of the pocket of his jeans.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_"

The man dodged away from the Full-Body Bind, cursing as his goat legs wobbled. "Harry! Cut it out! Same team, Harry, same team!"

"_Rictusempra!_"

That one got deflected by the umbrella. "Damn goat legs," said the man. "Lupin! A little help over here?"

"_Tarantallegra!_"

The spell clipped him on the ankles as the man tried to dodge again, and his goat legs started jerking wildly. The man toppled to the ground. "Remus!" His voice was noticeably higher-pitched.

A man stepped into Harry's field of vision from behind the wardrobe's exit. He had worn, tired features and hair that was streaked with grey, but his smile was full and bright. "Best go easy on him, Harry. You don't want to know what he had planned until I talked him down to this."

"Hmm," said Harry. He stuck his wand back in his pocket. "Somehow, I get the feeling that he kind of deserves it."

The half-goat man on the ground was cackling to himself as pulled out a wand and applied the counter-curse to his legs. He didn't stop at that, and with a few wand-motions his legs started transforming back into human ones.

"He does at that," said the other man. He turned to regard Harry. "I'm Remus Lupin. You know me, but you don't know that."

"I kind of figured," said Harry dryly.

"No way!" said the man on the ground, who was now waving his wand carefully over the horns on his forehead. "You did _not _figure this out. You're just acting all cool and collected because it's your default position."

"Yeah, I got kind of a big hint when the Minister, the Head Auror, and the Chief Warlock flipped out over the fact that I blocked a spell, and – " Harry felt that sense of pressure again. "Damn."

"We know," said Remus quietly. "We can take care of the binding spell later. But Aberforth filled us in."

"Ministry bastards," said the other man. He hopped to his feet. "I'm Sirius Black, although I don't know why I'm telling you since you're going to remember everything in about five minutes." He glanced up at the snow, which seemed to be coming from nowhere. "Take care of that, would you, Remus? I was always pants at weather."

Lupin pulled out a wand and swept it in a wide arc. "_Meteolojinx Recanto!_" The snow immediately stopped falling.

Sirius gestured grandly down the beach. The torches seemed to mark a path towards the shoreline. "Shall we?"

Harry looked over his shoulder. The wardrobe was sitting there in the sand, looking dreadfully out of place. "Should we get my stuff?"

"Later," said Remus. "We'll move the wardrobe back to the house. And, unfortunately, you'll be using it all summer, so there's no rush."

They started walking down the beach. Sirius walked a few paces ahead, flicking his wand at the torches, making them flash brilliantly with various colors, grinning all the while.

"Using it all summer?" said Harry.

"It's the compromise we came up with," said Remus, shrugging. "When you go to bed, you go back through the wardrobe to the Dursleys and sleep there. The bedroom's charmed so they can't go in. They'll leave you alone."

"Huh," said Harry. "I suppose this is going to make a bit more sense once I get my memories back?"

Sirius looked back over his shoulder, his eyes narrowing. "Just how much do you think you know about what's going on right now? You might just be faking this whole 'taking it in stride' thing. I want some proof before I pay up."

"I know that sometime after I turned seven, one of you came for me," said Harry calmly. "And I know Albus Dumbledore is involved." He looked around. "I know that I've spent a lot of time here. This place feels familiar. I know that you guys are on the outs with the Ministry, and for some reason you knew they'd read my mind at some point, so you made sure there wasn't anything to read. We're going to have a long conversation about that, by the way. And I know you have an agent at Hogwarts."

Sirius and Remus exchanged a long glance. Remus quirked an eyebrow. "Told you."

"Balls," said Sirius. "Fine, Harry, I owe you ten Galleons."

"How'd you know about the agent at Hogwarts?" asked Remus.

"Well, it's pretty obvious," said Harry. "I mean, he started this year, he used to be part of the Order. Doge even gave me –"

"Hang on," interrupted Remus. "Doge?"

"Yeah?" said Harry.

"Doge isn't our guy at Hogwarts," said Sirius slowly. "Snape is."

Harry felt his mouth go dry.

"Doge pretty much hates Albus these days, and Aberforth isn't exactly his favorite person," said Remus. "They were all very close, of course, but after Ariana went to St Mungo's…"

"Remus, he's going to remember it all in thirty seconds, there's no point in telling it all over again."

"_Snape_?" said Harry, his voice a little shrill. Doge had given him his mother's journal, but if he wasn't part of this conspiracy, then what game was he playing? Harry couldn't even process it right now; his mind was elsewhere. "Seriously. _Snape_?"

"Seriously," echoed Sirius. "He's not my favorite person, but he's on our side. Why? Did he give you a hard time?"

"A bit," said Harry. He looked around. They were almost at the water's edge. "Is he here too? Where is this, anyway?"

"This is a small, private island two kilometers off the coast of Greece," said a voice from the darkness. A circle of torches sprang to light, surrounding a pedestal with a wide, stone bowl. Behind it stood a wizened old man in a bright blue robe with gold moons and stars embroidered on it. Harry recognized him from the portrait in the Headmaster's office. "It is the sometime residence of Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel, and the headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix."

Albus Dumbledore broke into a wide, kind smile. "Forgive me, Harry, for indulging Sirius's penchant for the dramatic."

"You didn't protest too hard, Albus," said Sirius, going to stand by his side.

"Can we get on with this?" asked Harry. "It's been a long year of doubting my sanity and not trusting my own mind. I'd rather not spend more time doing that than I have to."

"Right. Sorry, Harry," muttered Sirius. He waved Harry forward. The stone bowl was filled with swirling light. Most of it was silvery and seemed almost like a liquid, but ripples of gold popped up here and there, and every now and then, bubbles burst to the surface in a prismatic spray of color.

"This will be quite disorienting, Harry," said Dumbledore as he drew his wand. Harry peered over the edge of the bowl, entranced. "It was a very complex spell that modified the Pensieve in this way, storing your memories and removing them completely from your mind. With luck, the false memories we concocted will simply fade away like fog in the sunlight, your true memories settling into their well-worn paths. Alas, the mind is a complex, many-layered thing, and certainty is never possible. I think it quite likely that even if all goes as planned, your old memories will take some time to integrate completely. I tell you this, merely to make you aware of the dangers ahead."

"In other words," said Sirius, "don't panic."

Harry looked up at Dumbledore. "Do it."

Dumbledore twirled his wand, his expression one of pure focus as he dipped his wand into the bowl, stirring. A few seconds went by, and Dumbledore gave the tiniest of frowns, and for a brief second, Harry's heart dropped into his boots. Then Dumbledore's wand stopped moving, snagged on something. "Oho," said Dumbledore happily as he fished up a glowing band of liquid light. He drew it, very slowly, to Harry's temple.

"This is going to feel… quite odd," said Dumbledore, and the band of light brushed against his skin.

Harry had enough time to see the bowl draining at an alarming rate, and to feel a curious sensation, not unlike what he imagined it would feel like if someone parboiled his brain. Then he blacked out.

…

_A high, cold laugh and a green flash of light. No, that's too far. A motorcycle in the air. Snow. A half-goat man. No, that's too far the other way. Light. No light. A cupboard._

_Ah._

…

_The first time Harry saw his godfather, Sirius Black scared him terribly. He was nice at first, and Harry didn't believe half the things he said when they talked out in the garden, but he was kind and unlike anyone Harry had ever met, but his face kept getting colder as Harry told him about his own life, and Harry knew he was doing something wrong, and later, after Sirius saw the cupboard, he had a terrible expression on his face. He unfroze the Dursleys, and he said, "If you say one word to my godson, from now until the end of your miserable lives, just one word, I will kill you." It wasn't the words that really scared Harry, it was the voice._

…

"_It would have been a mere formality. I gave a statement that you were the Potters' Secret-Keeper. You were found laughing, quite madly, I would add, over the corpses of twelve Muggles and the bloody finger of Peter Pettigrew. Given your close ties to James and Lily, and given their status as heroes of the war, I believe Minister Bagnold feared what a very public, well-publicized trial would reveal." Harry listened through the door as Sirius argued with Dumbledore. He was supposed to be back through the wardrobe by now, sleeping back in England, but the conversation was too interesting to miss. They were talking about when Sirius went to Azkaban, and Sirius _never _talked about that. "They thought… they thought I was having an _affair_ with Lily?" Sirius started making a choking noise that sounded like it was half laughing and half crying_.

…

_Harry sat with Sirius at a café in Paris. He'd just turned ten, and this wasn't his idea of a fun birthday. "That's it," said Sirius. "Now look more pathetic. No, not angry, pathetic. Remember, you're an orphan. And I'm your handsome, compassionate godfather who has raised you all by himself. Is she looking?"_

…

_Remus's lessons were never dull, but Harry couldn't call them terribly exciting. He liked it when Remus got off on a tangent, though. It happened a lot when he started talking about the state of magical Britain. Sometimes, it dovetailed into what could reasonably be called a rant, especially if a full moon was coming up and Remus was getting antsy. "It's almost as bad as the war, it's just not as obvious," said Remus. "No, that's not true. It's fine. For some people. Not everyone. Not for me. If I went back there, if I did nothing but walk down the street and stay at an inn for a week, I'd be arrested. Guaranteed. They never realized what they had when Dumbledore was running things. He was a moderating influence. With the Council of Magical Law folded into the Wizengamot, Barty Crouch having free rein to persecute so-called traitors… no one really talks about it, but it's two steps removed from McCarthyism." Remus blinked. "What were we talking about?"_

…

_They always went bowling after their lessons. Dumbledore was cheerfully infuriating, and Harry was always a bit steamed after another lesson of abstract concepts he barely understood, and nothing else. He took out his frustration on the pins, though he hardly ever won. Harry and Dumbledore sat on cheap plastic seats between games. "I don't get why you won't teach me anything useful," groused Harry. Dumbledore regarded him calmly, those electric blue eyes forever unfazed. "Are you so sure that I am not, Harry?" "I'm sure you haven't taught me a single spell," said Harry. "I'm sure that Voldemort is out there, and I'm going to need to know spells." "I am not sure," said Dumbledore quietly, and he looked old and wise and legendary and sad and vastly out of place in a bowling alley. "I was sure, once. I was absolutely sure that I needed to rule the world for its own good, and I was absolutely wrong." His voice dropped almost to a whisper. "I will never be sure again."_

…

_Nicolas and Perenelle unnerved the hell out of Harry. They weren't around very often, but when they were, they were memorable. Nicolas, when he bothered, was dry and sarcastic and charming and sometimes said something offhand about magic that floored Harry and sent him reeling back to the library to study for a week. Perenelle told the most marvelous stories, and Harry was positive that when she looked at him, there was genuine affection on her face. But both of them had this habit of going still and quiet and not moving for minutes, even hours. They perceived time on a different scale. And sometimes, when they looked at Harry, Harry wondered if they saw anything significant at all._

…

_Snape spent as little time on the island as possible. When Harry was nine, Snape began spending more of his summer on the island trying to teach Harry Occlumency. Dumbledore had begged off, as his schedule was too irregular with the ICW. "This is pointless," said Snape, two weeks into the training. Harry was nursing a fierce headache, and Sirius was facing off with Snape in the other room. "Teaching a child even basic Occlumency is a fool's errand, even if he was the most self-disciplined child in the universe, which Potter is decidedly not." Sirius's voice had an edge to it. "Harry knows what's right, and he acts on it. Wearing your heart on your sleeve isn't a bad thing." Harry could practically feel Snape's sneer. "It is, Black."_

…

_Harry was nine years old, and Sirius had insisted he be a part of the meeting. Snape had rushed back to the island, and he looked pale and worn. He'd never once come unannounced, in the middle of the school term. They stood there in the living room in a loose circle. Sirius, with Harry by his side. Remus. Dumbledore. Snape. Nicolas and Perenelle, for once seeming very interested in the conversation. Slowly, Snape pushed up the sleeve of his robe, baring his left arm. There was something there – a mark. "The Dark Lord's power rises. You failed, Lupin." Remus looked away. "Are we sure it's Peter? He couldn't have found someone else?" asked Sirius. "How far are you willing to stretch coincidence to spare your friend's feelings?" said Snape scathingly. "Last year he lost the trail in Albania. Dumbledore's ICW contacts reported rumors of a dark presence in the forests of Albania." Dumbledore stirred. He'd been lost in thought, now he looked around, taking the measure of them all. "I fear we must adapt our plans greatly."_

Harry opened his eyes. He was on his back, looking at the stars. He raised his head and saw that the scene in front of him had barely changed. Dumbledore, Sirius, and Remus stood around the stone bowl, chatting. Harry leaped to his feet, strode over to Sirius and slugged him in the chest.

"You owe me _twenty_ Galleons, you git!"

* * *

><p><strong>Feedback, encouragement, and commentary is heartily appreciated by me, the author!<strong>


	5. Chapter 4 - A Lion in Winter

**Author's note: **

**I'd like to thank everyone who's expressed interest in this story, from the people who've silently followed to the folks who've left me lengthy, incredibly useful feedback.**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4 – A Lion in Winter<strong>

Harry's excitement for Quidditch Camp had dimmed over the summer for two reasons. The first reason was that it was the first summer since he'd started learning a hodgepodge of magical theory from some of the greatest minds in the entire world that he had the use of his own wand. It was like he'd been reading about famous chefs and cooking tips and secret recipes for four years, and now he was finally allowed in the kitchen. Cutting into his studies for a week seemed a lot less appealing than it had at the beginning of the summer.

The second reason was that New Zealand in August was _cold_. No one had mentioned the whole "inverted seasons" thing. Warming Charms and winter robes helped, but it still wasn't exactly pleasant.

"Remind me again whose idea this was?" asked Cedric, blowing warm air into his hands and rubbing them together vigorously.

Harry, Cho, and Cedric were walking off a professional Quidditch pitch along with a couple dozen other youths. They were definitely in the lower range, age-wise. Harry could hear the babble of five or so separate languages wash over him as the crowd made its way off the pitch and into the training complex.

"I know it's not exactly comfortable, but we've learned loads, haven't we?" said Cho as they followed the crowd to the cafeteria.

"One entire day out of the seven that we're here to drill _Arresto Momentum_ into our heads," said Cedric.

"Well, it's a safety thing, isn't it? And we can use magic here, that's nice, right?" said Cho, starting to sound a bit desperate.

"I like it," said Harry firmly. "We're learning from professional Quidditch players, and the worst person here could fly rings around most people at Hogwarts. I'm glad we came," he said, looking at Cedric meaningfully.

"Right," said Cedric, taking Harry's hint. "I didn't mean I wasn't having a good time or anything. This was a really good idea. I'm glad we're here, Cho!"

"Laying it on a bit thick, mate," muttered Harry.

The atmosphere inside the cafeteria was blessedly warm and comfortable. After piling their plates with carbohydrates, the three of them made a beeline for an empty table. The short time they'd been there, combined with the other kids' ages and the frequent language barrier had made their group insular. Not that Harry minded, particularly. In fact, today he was quite glad of that fact.

"So," said Harry as they sat down, "what did you two sign up for this afternoon?" He started playing with his silverware nervously. He'd asked an easy question to start with, and was psyching himself up for a much tougher conversation.

"I put myself down for Tactics and Strategy again," said Cedric. "The Hufflepuff team is really coordinated, and they work really well together, but they're not very creative. They're bringing back the whole Chaser line next year, as well as both Beaters, and if I can bring some new plays to the table, it could be huge for us."

"Don't know how you can stand that one, Cedric," said Cho, wrinkling her nose. "I took it the first day and nearly fell asleep. Who wants to be in a classroom when you can be up in the air? I'm doing Seeker Skills. Did you see those guys drilling yesterday?"

"I saw how you kept pestering that older kid," said Harry, grinning at her. "He seemed kind of ticked off, though it's hard to tell because I don't think I've ever seen him _not _scowling since we've been here. What's his name – Vikram?"

"Viktor," corrected Cho. She leaned forward. "He's _brilliant_. His English isn't so good, but I think I used enough hand gestures to get my point across. He taught me a couple moves. He's…" words seemed to fail Cho. "I've never seen anyone fly like that. Ever."

"Hey," said Harry.

"Yeah, hey," said Cedric.

"You boys are quite good as well," said Cho. "Don't get all huffy." She quickly changed the subject. "What about you, Harry? Going to do another pick-up match?"

"Nah," said Harry. "I think I'm going to try Aerial Maneuvers. I'm starting to think it's not Quidditch I like so much as flying really fast and having to dodge things."

Cho, and to a lesser extent Cedric, gave him looks that communicated their disbelief of his stance.

"Anyway," said Harry, trying a final time to settle his nerves as he surreptitiously drew his wand under the table. "I wanted to bring something up. I've been meaning to talk to you guys about it, and I've been trying to find a good time, and, well, I guess this is as good a time as any."

Cho and Cedric exchanged a quick look, and then nodded. "Go ahead," said Cedric guardedly.

Harry focused. "_Muffliato_," he whispered. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to feel his way around the spell. "Damn. Botched it." He kept his eyes closed, slowed down his hand as he moved his wand, and cast. "_Muffliato_," he said in a louder, firmer voice. He opened his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief.

"What was that?" asked Cho.

"Just something to make sure we're not overheard," said Harry. He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the lacquered wooden table. "So." He suddenly wasn't sure how to start. His emotions were all over the place. He was excited to tell them, nervous about what they'd think, and desperately afraid that it would threaten their friendship.

"You got your memories back," said Cedric calmly.

Harry blinked.

"It wasn't hard to guess, Harry," said Cho, rolling her eyes. "You dropped enough hints that you'd figured something out, something big, and you weren't worried about the summer at all."

"Right," said Harry, nodding. He dropped his eyes to the table for a second, and then looked up. "And I need to know if you want to know about it. You saw what happened with the Auror. When I got to the Headmaster's office, I got run over by a bunch of Ministry people wanting to know how I'd blocked that spell, and when I couldn't give a good enough explanation, they had an Auror use Legilimency on me."

Cho gasped, and Cedric's eyebrows rose. "That's… I don't know if that's illegal or not, but even if it's not, it's pretty harsh," said Cedric. "Even at the Death Eater trials, they hardly ever –"

"Are you okay, Harry?" interrupted Cho.

"I'm fine," said Harry. "They didn't find anything, and that ended up kind of clarifying things for me. They were all worked up about the Headmaster's brother, worried he'd corrupted me or something, so I figured that was probably what had happened, but in a good way. They even had the Chief Warlock use some kind of binding spell so I couldn't talk about any of this, but luckily I happen to know a _former _Chief Warlock who knows how to remove it." Harry took a deep breath. "Before I say anything else, I want to give you guys the chance to back out. Knowing this stuff could be risky. Not 'I might get detention' risky, either. You could get hurt."

Cho opened her mouth, and Harry could tell she was about to wave off all of his worries. He made his voice cold. "You could get other people hurt, too."

That sobered them up.

"I'm not saying we're going to chase Dark wizards down the halls of Hogwarts, or overthrow the Ministry, but if I let you two into my circle, when we go back, school and Quidditch aren't going to be the only things I'm working on." Harry clasped his hands and leaned back. He hoped the message had gotten through.

It took them only a couple seconds. Harry was surprised, and relieved, and surprised that he was relieved.

"Tell us," said Cedric. Cho nodded in agreement.

Harry blew out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Okay. What do you know about a wizard named Sirius Black?"

It took the rest of the lunch break for Harry to explain the circumstances behind Sirius's imprisonment and subsequent escape from Azkaban. He found himself having to continually retreat further into the past, drudging up details that he himself was foggy on. Sirius and Remus talked about Harry's parents willingly enough, but neither of them brought up Peter Pettigrew casually, and both were reluctant to go into detail about their globetrotting, seven-year search for the man.

"This is huge," whispered Cho as the three of them walked over to the bins, depositing the remains of their lunches. "I remember when I was really little, my parents talked about Black sometimes. Like, they were afraid to go outside at night because he might be out there somewhere. I guess that stuff died down over the years. But still, finding out that it was all a big mistake… is that why they went looking for the other man – Peter, was it?"

"Partly," said Harry, very aware that they'd left the safe confines of the _Muffliato_ spell. "If they found Peter, they could clear Sirius's name. But there was another reason. I'll have to save that for next time." The cafeteria was emptying, everyone heading outside for the afternoon session. Harry hesitated. "I don't need to tell you to keep this to yourselves, right?"

"Of course," said Cedric. He'd worn a perpetual frown that had gotten deeper and deeper as Harry had spun his tale. "This is going to take some getting used to, though. So he was the one who…raised you, I guess, when you were seven?"

"Yeah. There's so much more I have to tell you. It'll have to wait until dinner, I guess." The three of them seemed to be the last ones left in the cafeteria.

Harry started to move, but Cedric stopped him. "Harry. Thanks for trusting us with this."

"I couldn't not tell you, you know?" said Harry. He looked away, staring off into the middle distance. It was less embarrassing that way. "It wouldn't feel right. I know it's a bit risky, telling you two, what with the Ministry keeping an eye on me, but I don't care. It means something to me, having you know." He cleared his throat roughly.

"Well, it means something to hear it," said Cedric, giving Harry a friendly nudge of the shoulder. "Come on, we'll be late." He started to move toward the exit.

Cho didn't say anything, but her expression said a lot. She slung an arm over Harry's shoulder – ever since he'd turned twelve last month, Harry had been holding out hope for a growth spurt, but no such luck: Cho still had about an inch on him – and they made their way outside, bundling up against the cold.

* * *

><p>Only five of them had signed up for that afternoon's Aerial Maneuvers class, which suited Harry just fine. The instructor was a Chaser for the Moutohora Macaws, a team famed for its speed and showmanship. He was broad-shouldered, very tan, and seemed to wear a perpetual grin.<p>

Without a word, he directed Harry and the other four onto their brooms and into the air, up and out of the stadium, until they were stationed in a controlled hover a few hundred feet in the air. He reached into a pocket of his thick Quidditch robes and pulled out a scrap of parchment. He looked up, scrutinizing Harry and the others.

"Three of you speak English, correct?" he asked. Harry raised his hand along with two other boys.

"Good." He grinned at them. "I'm Petera Zhang. We're going to ditch all those silly Quidditch drills and do some honest-to-goodness _flying_. Sound good?" He barely waited for three eager nods. "Good. Now hang on while I bring the others up to speed."

Petera cocked his head at the remaining boy. "_Sprechen Sie Deutsch?_" The boy nodded curtly, and Petera rattled off a series of what Harry guessed were instructions in the harsh-sounding language.

Turning to the last student, who happened to be the only girl, Petera clicked his tongue. "Sorry, my French is pretty bad. I just need to know if that's your first language. Uh… _parlez-vous fran_ç_ais?_"

The girl, who had her silvery-blonde hair pulled into a loose ponytail, gave him a withering glare and replied in rapid-fire French. Harry thought he caught the word "accent," and combined with the disparaging tone, the message was pretty clear.

Petera just shrugged. He stuffed the parchment back into his robes and drew out his wand. He swept it in a broad arc encompassing the group, then brought it to his lips. He tapped his wand against his lips three times.

"Everyone hears me?"

The voice came from Petera, but it was distorted, fuzzy. Harry had to strain to hear him, even though he was only a few feet away. Still, he nodded along with the rest of them.

"Good," said the buzzy, faint voice. "Translation Charms are fickle. Not good. Broad meaning only." He pointed to his left, out past the training complex where the neatly-trimmed fields gave way to a dark, thick forest. "Everyone follows me. We fly now. Keep up, if you are able." He followed that last statement with a grin that threatened to split his face in two, and then pivoted his broom on a crazy axis until he was hanging almost upside-down, then flattened himself along the handle and shot off in the direction he'd pointed.

Harry didn't stick around to see if the other students followed; he pitched forward on his broom and dove after the instructor.

Petera led the group on a convoluted, zigzagging path around the edges of the training complex. He looked back a few times, casually, to keep tabs on everyone, but most of his focus seemed to be on pulling off heart-stopping twists and turns that took them alarmingly close to the sides of buildings.

They came to a stop at the edge of the forest. It was all wilderness in front of them, as far as the eye could see. A river bisected their field of vision, and snow-capped mountains rose in the distance.

Petera inched out ahead of the group, took out his wand, held it above his head, and brought it down with an emphatic swish. A thick, golden ribbon of light burst forth, rapidly winding its way through the air, twisting down through the trees until Harry lost sight of it. Petera didn't let up, focusing on the spell for almost a minute. Then he tucked his wand away and turned to face Harry and the others.

"Golden line marks path for broom race," he said through the Translation Charm, the voice flat and monotone. "Finish is far away, there." He pointed, and Harry could see, in the distance, the tiny golden line poking up from the forest and leading to a hazy, glimmering shape hanging in the air. It was hard to tell, but it looked several miles away, at least. "First one to pass through golden box at finish, wins. But: must make contact with golden line every ten seconds. Follow path. Take shortcuts if you can. If you wait too long to touch line, next touch is a shock – disqualified. Turn around, come back." Petera lazily swept his broom out of the way. The golden line hung in front of them, shimmering. "Well? Go!"

And with that, they were off. Harry wasn't any quicker off the mark than any of the others – Quidditch Camp wasn't populated by people who missed a trick more than once.

Harry built an early lead mostly due to his size – he simply accelerated faster than the rest of them. He shadowed the path of the line as it started to arc down to the forest. Experimentally, Harry nudged right alongside it and swept his hand through it. It was incorporeal, but he felt a surge of warmth as his hand dipped into it.

Just as he was starting to dive towards the forest, he felt a rush of air whip at his clothes, and someone passed him, high and to the left. It was the French girl, bent low on the broom, her hand shooting out to briefly touch the line before she dove, taking a sharper angle than Harry, breaking away from the line only to connect with it again near the forest.

_Smart girl_, thought Harry, irritated that he hadn't thought of that. He hunched forward, coaxing every bit of speed he could out of the Cleansweep Seven. As he leveled off, he saw the first trees of the forest approach with alarming rapidity. He bared his teeth in a feral grin, dipped his foot into the line, and rocketed into the forest.

After a few seconds, Harry was having the time of his life. Sirius teaching him to fly on the island, Remus taking him on a flying carpet tour of Tibet, Albus Dumbledore guiding him through the Labyrinth of Knossos and delving deep into its ancient mysteries, Nicolas Flamel allowing him to hold the fabled Philosopher's Stone, the look on Sirius's face when Harry had conspired with Nicolas to fake turning Sirius's flying motorcycle into solid gold… these were Harry's cherished memories.

And they were all blown out of the water by this.

Harry whooped with delight as he passed so close to a tree that his feet brushed the branches as he flipped over and hauled the broom into a hard turn. Just as he righted himself, the line curved the opposite way and dove toward the ground. Harry followed.

He soon caught on to the fact that you could jump the "racetrack" if you were quick enough, and saw ahead far enough. There were points where Harry could see that the line doubled back on itself – sort of – and if you were brave, and fast, you could touch the line, then dive off course and hope it didn't take you more than ten seconds to fly the shortcut.

Catching a few glimpses of the French girl as he twisted and turned through the forest made him redouble his efforts and dial up his risk tolerance. He saw the golden line rise up out of the trees, but out of the corner of his eye he was almost sure he saw it dip back in ahead and to the right. Without even thinking about it, he broke away and to the right, barely slowing as the trees thickened and the underbrush became denser.

All of a sudden, he was in open air. He'd made it to the river. And there was the line, following it. Grinning, Harry flew alongside it and brushed it with his hand.

The sound of the girl shouting from behind him just made him grin harder. He couldn't understand her, but judging by her tone, whatever she was yelling wasn't complimentary.

The line dipped under a wooden footbridge and Harry followed, the space between the river and the bridge probably less than fifteen feet. Harry blazed through at top speed.

_This is so much goddamn fun_.

As he came out from under the bridge, he felt the girl behind him. He chanced a look back, didn't see her, looked forward again only to see the river starting a sharp bend, the line following it steadily, and then she was just _there_. Right alongside him, her expression a mirror of his own pure joy and concentration, her silvery hair fluttering arrow-straight behind her as she matched Harry's reckless speed.

The line broke off from the river; Harry could see it weaving through a clearing up ahead that was filled with sparse trees and large boulders. He followed, the girl by his side.

They tore through the clearing like a pair of slalom skiers, twisting, cutting across each other, their laughter transcending language, each dip and dive taking them closer to a tree. Or a rock.

Up ahead, Harry saw the line arcing in a gentle upward slope, continuing hundreds of feet into the sky where a shimmering golden rectangle waited. With no obstacles left, it was a matter of pure speed. He'd inched ahead of the French girl, but she was right on his tail. He gritted his teeth and lay flat on the broom, rocketing up as fast as he'd ever flown.

He could practically feel her nipping at his heels. It could have been air resistance, or broom quality, but as they darted toward the finish, she was gaining on him. Harry had practically molded himself onto the handle of the broom by that point.

It was pure adrenaline. Nothing but a last, desperate sprint to the finish. She was _right _beside him. They both stretched out their hands at the same time…

"Yes!" cried Harry as they broke the plane of the rectangle. He started braking gently, looking around for some magical sign he'd won. The French girl was pacing him. She looked at him scornfully.

"I won," grinned Harry. "By a finger. I saw it." It looked like she didn't quite get it, so Harry pointed to himself, then started mock-cheering.

The girl shook her head, flinging her silvery-blonde ponytail over her shoulder. "_C'est n'importe quoi!_" Her indignant tone carried more meaning than the actual words.

"No way," said Harry. He found himself grinning like an idiot, still riding the adrenaline from the race. He pointed to himself again. "You know who won? This guy."

The French girl stared at him for a second, and then broke into a dazzling grin. Harry hadn't gotten a good look at her before. She was older, maybe by a couple years, and she was… pretty. Her cheeks were flushed, probably from the high-speed race, but her hair was near-perfect. Harry didn't even want to know what his own looked like.

The girl reached into her robes and drew out a wand. She aimed it at a point in the distance and muttered an incantation Harry had never heard before. The golden light seemed to be like the instructor's spell, but instead of a line, it was a ball of light that sped away from them. Harry watched it as it flew away, and he had to squint as it became fainter. Just as he thought he'd lose sight of it altogether, it expanded into a recognizable glowing gold rectangle.

After stowing her wand, the girl looked over at Harry, her expression mischievous. "_Ça te dit?_"

Harry Potter knew a challenge when he heard one.

The next half-hour was a blur. Soaring over treetops, the wind whipping at his hair, jockeying for position with the French girl, laughing madly when he cut in front of her just as they reached the finish line, cursing her with words he'd learned from Sirius and only half-understood when she did the same to him… it was pure, unadulterated fun.

The routes grew more creative. Though the girl evidently couldn't reproduce the golden line that the instructor had conjured, she was able to cast multiple finish lines in a row, effectively creating a series of checkpoints that she strategically placed in hard-to-navigate parts of the forest. Harry found himself flying through a waterfall, under a fallen tree, and between two rocky spires, alternatingly leading and being led by the French girl.

Harry's first hint that something was amiss came when he was careening up towards the latest golden rectangle and noticed that he had to maneuver over a series of snow-covered hills to get there. His hesitation cost him, and the girl easily outpaced him, beating him handily to their latest goal.

"Hey, hold up a bit!" called Harry. He looked behind him and felt a twinge of unease. The forest where they'd started the race was _just _visible as a speck on the horizon.

The girl heard him, and swung her broom in a graceful arc, doubling back.

"Do you think we've gone a bit far?" asked Harry. The girl gave him a blank look, so Harry started pointing emphatically at the distant forest. The adrenaline high Harry had been riding was starting to wear off, and he realized that he was quite cold. "I think we should probably head back, don't you?" Harry tried to pantomime the question, and wasn't at all sure he'd done a good job.

A shadow fell over him.

The girl gasped. Harry zeroed in on her expression, which was one of dawning terror. Her eyes were focused on something above and behind Harry.

As it turned out, the French and English language shared a number of words. One of those words was "dragon."

"_Dragon!"_ screamed the girl. Her eyes widened and she spun away, diving toward the ground.

Harry didn't hesitate; he tipped over ninety degrees and dove. He felt heat above him and a loud, dull _whump _of sound. He looked behind him and immediately wished he hadn't.

In one rather distant corner of his mind, Harry identified the huge flying lizard spewing vivid scarlet flame at the space he'd just vacated as an Antipodean Opaleye. Dumbledore's workshop on the island had lifelike statues of every breed of dragon – something to do with his research on the creatures' blood – and this one was particularly distinctive. It was beautiful, if terribly frightening at that particular moment, with glittering pearly scales and huge, multicolored, pupil-less eyes.

The larger portion of Harry's brain was preoccupied with screaming.

The snow-capped hills approached at a dizzying pace, and Harry leveled off, his heart thudding in his chest. He looked around, getting his bearings. The French girl was pacing him about a hundred feet to the left. She was gesturing frantically, though Harry hadn't the faintest idea what she was trying to communicate.

Harry heard a roar behind him and immediately took a hard angle to the ground. He went skimming along the snow-covered surface of the hills, reacting purely on instinct. He chanced another look behind him and saw that the dragon seemed torn between targets – the gout of flame was directed in Harry's wake, but the dragon was arcing and curving in the air towards the girl.

Harry cursed as the girl started looping back in his direction. "No, stay separated!" he yelled, knowing it was useless. She couldn't hear him at that distance, and even if she could, she couldn't understand him, and vice versa. As she approached, she gestured, catching his attention. She stuck out her wand and cast another one of the golden sparks that turned into rectangular finish lines – directly at the pursuing dragon.

The dragon roared in annoyance as its head was enveloped in a brilliant gold glow that lasted a scant few seconds.

Harry was nearing the girl; they were about to pass each other. He pointed down and to the right. "Make for the forest!" he shouted. She held up a hand, two fingers – and then they were past each other.

It was enough – Harry grasped hear meaning. Mentally crossing his fingers, he pulled out his own wand, flipped around with a quick loop, felt his stomach clench at how bloody _close _the dragon looked, and then yelled "_Caecalo!_"

The scintillating ball of white light connected with the dragon's head at the same instant as the French girl's golden spell. The dragon twisted in the air, almost tumbling end-over-end, completely disoriented.

"_Allez!_" The girl's yell needed no translation, and they simultaneously broke for the forest.

The angry roar from behind him made Harry flinch on his broom, twitching it down another few degrees, which turned out to be fortunate indeed as he felt a crackling heat near his legs. Startled, he looked over his shoulder and saw one extremely peeved dragon spewing jets of scarlet flame in all directions. The dragon wasn't following them, which was good, but the bundle of twigs on the back of Harry's broom was quite literally on fire, which was bad. The broom had also stopped responding to his grip and body position; he was flying without a metaphorical rudder.

Harry yelled in alarm and swung his feet forward, scooting up on the broom handle. It was a terrible position for any kind of aerial maneuvers, but it was preferable to having charred stumps for legs. His yell drew the girl's attention. She was pacing him as they made for the forest, and Harry saw her eyes go wide as she looked over and saw his condition. She veered towards him, and as she pulled alongside, she shouted something in French, beckoning him with her hand.

"That's bloody insane!" shouted Harry over the rushing wind. They were rapidly approaching the forest at sixty, maybe seventy miles an hour.

The girl edged closer, skillfully keeping her broom away from the burning tail of Harry's. She held out a hand. "_Dépêchez-vous!_"

Harry started muttering fervently under his breath as he swung his leg over the broom handle, the heat from behind him starting to ratchet up to painful levels. He didn't have any idea what he was saying, or even what language it was, only that Sirius had picked it up in Hangzhou in an incident that Remus categorically refused to talk about involving a botched Translation Charm, a holy festival, a drunken mob, a competition of some sort, and a long string of words called the Sixty-Three Sequential Sacrileges. They were lyrical and had a nice rhythm to them, and apparently used in circumstances where only the most creative blasphemies were called for.

As Harry reached out to clasp the girl's hand, he used his legs to push off from his broom. For a moment, he thought it was going to work. His knees knocked against the back of the girl's broom handle, she swung him adroitly behind her, the broom wobbling at the additional weight, but she held it steady somehow. And then Harry's broom, free from its rider, rocketed straight across their path like a loose firework, the tail ablaze.

The girl yelled and instinctively rolled away from the fiery broom. Harry overcompensated as he leaned against the motion and felt himself sliding off the side. The girl grabbed him, he grabbed _her _as the broom started to shudder out of her one-handed grip – there was a confusing moment where it wasn't exactly clear who was trying to steady whom – and then they were both in free fall.

Harry felt himself tumbling wildly. The ground seemed to be coming up awfully fast. He freed his wand from his robes – no mean trick as they flailed about in the wind – tried to get his bearings, saw his target, and snapped off a spell. "_Arresto Momentum!_"

He saw the spell impact the girl just as her own spell hit him. Harry felt himself slow down; at first it was like he was falling through water, then molasses. His feet, ever so lightly, brushed against the ground just at the edge of the forest. At the lower altitude, the snow was just a thin coating. Harry looked up in time to see the remains of his broom shoot over the tops of the trees like a comet. The girl's broom was nowhere to be seen, and the girl herself was just alighting a few feet away.

"Cedric is going to have to eat his words," said Harry. "Taking a whole day to get that spell down turned out to be pretty useful after all."

The girl raised a questioning eyebrow at him as she brushed herself off.

Curiously, Harry felt calm, though physically he was jittery from the adrenaline and shaking a bit from the cold. He focused on taking slow, deep breaths.

The girl started talking – a question, it sounded like. Harry shrugged. "Sorry, not getting it."

She shot him an exasperated glance and held up her wand. The incantation was the same unfamiliar one she'd used to create the golden race markers, but Harry was quick enough to catch the subtle way she changed the wand motion.

The bright sphere of light shot into the sky, coming to a stationary hover a few hundred feet in the air. Instead of expanding into a rectangle, it retained its spherical shape, but got brighter, pulsing with light.

"Good idea," said Harry, looking up at it. "I'm sure they're on their way by now anyway, but that'll make it a lot easier." He glanced back at the snow-covered hillside and the mountain beyond. "I'm glad Antipodean Opaleyes aren't aggressive, otherwise I'd be worried about it coming after us."

They stood there for a moment. The girl looked at him.

Harry looked at her. "I'm Harry Potter," he said. She looked at him and shook her head slightly. He pointed to himself. "Harry."

"'Arry," she echoed. Her mouth curved into a smile as she pointed to herself. "Fleur."

"Fleur," said Harry, rolling the name around in his mind. He held out his hand and she took it. Her hands were trembling slightly, just like his. "Good name."

She cocked her head, obviously trying to figure something out. "'Ogwarts?" she asked.

Harry nodded as they dropped their hands. "Yes. And you?"

"Beauxbatons."

"Bless you."

Fleur blinked. "_Excusez-moi?_"

"Sorry, old joke," said Harry, grinning. He sat himself down on the ground, brushing away the light coating of snow, and conjured bluebell flames. Fleur joined him, though she used some kind of cleaning spell to clear away the snow.

"It would be nice to speak the same language, but we're not doing that badly, are we?" asked Harry.

Fleur shrugged and rattled off a long string of French words. The end seemed to be a question, judging by the inflection.

"No idea," said Harry. He found himself in an unaccountably good mood.

Rolling her eyes, Fleur stuck her foot out and used it to draw a crude picture in the snow – a box with a triangle on top of it. A house?

"Ah," said Harry. "I'm in Gryffindor." She just looked at him quizzically. "You know, Gryffindor. The Lions?" Harry raised his hands and pawed at the air. "Rawr!"

Fleur started laughing. It was a nice sound, Harry thought. "Okay, so that wasn't the best lion impersonation ever."

She quieted down after a moment, and the two of them shared a companionable silence.

"I guess I should thank you for saving me back there," said Harry after a time. Fleur looked at him, just watching, listening. "We helped each other, I mean. Quick thinking, blinding the dragon like that. I didn't have a plan, myself. Why'd you cast that _Arresto _on me first, though? Guess I did the same thing, come to think of it. I thought if I got myself first you'd be too far away to hit accurately by the time I could throw out another one. Answered my own question, I suppose. Great minds think alike."

Harry broke into a rueful smile. "This is mental, isn't it? I know you can't understand a word I'm saying, and yet I'm still saying it. A bit liberating, in a way. I'm Harry Potter, and I'm desperately afraid my friends are going to abandon me when they find out there's a mad Dark wizard trying to claw his way back to life just for a second shot at killing me. I live on an island with my wanted criminal godfather and his werewolf best friend, along with two mad geniuses, an evil potions master, and a woman who's the closest thing I have to a mother and who also sometimes looks at people the way people look at pets."

Fleur kept looking at him, saying nothing. She was paying attention, though. She inched closer to the fire, reaching behind her head to undo her ponytail, shaking out her long mane of silvery hair.

"And that would be fine, except that Sirius says I can trust _maybe _half of those people," continued Harry. "Those people, by the way, are the only ones actively working on this whole Dark Lord problem. And if the wrong person knew that I knew them, well, that could go very bad, very fast. I guess what I mean is it's going to be hard to just kick back and have fun at Hogwarts this time around, now that I remember all this stuff. But that's what everyone's going to tell me to do. Sirius wants me to have a fun childhood so hard he practically beats me over the head with birthday cake."

Harry stretched out, using his elbows to prop himself up as he stared into the fire. "It's very strange being well-known for something you can't remember. You know, there was an article in the paper about me getting Sorted into Gryffindor. What am I supposed to think about that? Fred and George teased me about it, and I heard a lot of people talking about it. I'm completely baffled that anyone would care that much. And a little peeved, too. I don't want to be a symbol, or anything else besides _me_. It's not fair to expect anything else. And what's anyone doing paying attention to me, when it was my parents who did the thing worth paying attention to? My mum…" Harry shook his head wordlessly. "They want to raise their glass to anyone, it should be her." He sighed. The ground wasn't comfortable and his elbows were starting to hurt. "Suppose I'm rambling a bit."

He shut up. Fleur was still paying attention, though. She started talking. Harry couldn't understand her, of course, but he liked to hear her talk. She had a very pleasant voice, when it came down to it. After a while she trailed off, looking at him expectantly.

"More, huh? I guess I could tell you about Hogwarts. You'd like it, probably. That was some quick wand-work, and anyone interested in magic would be interested in Hogwarts. There's all kinds of things to discover there. One time I was in the basement, and I heard this sound like wind chimes, only it was this specific pattern, and it was coming from these tiles on the floor, and it turned out to be…"

Harry found himself talking about Hogwarts, describing the castle with his hands. When he finished a story, Fleur would start talking, and Harry paid attention to her. It was a curiously one-sided form of truth telling that felt anything but solitary.

When the phalanx of instructors from Quidditch Camp showed up, agitated and alarmed, Harry was almost annoyed at being interrupted.

* * *

><p>"You wandered into a dragon sanctuary."<p>

"Yeah."

"You _wandered into a dragon sanctuary_," said Cho, her glare almost scorching him.

"Just because you keep repeating it in that tone doesn't make it any worse," said Harry.

"How did you even get thirty miles away from the training grounds?" asked Cedric.

The three of them were sitting in the cafeteria once again. The atmosphere at dinner was drastically different than it had been at lunch. For Harry, the stares and whispers directed their way made him almost nostalgic for Hogwarts.

"I admit we got a bit carried away," said Harry. "But it's not _that _crazy. Brooms go pretty fast."

"Yeah, that'll hold up in court," muttered Cedric.

Harry took a long drink from his glass, surreptitiously scanning the room. "Come on, it wasn't that bad. I'm fine, Fleur's fine. Hell, the dragon's probably fine. I'm not exactly sure how those two light spells interacted, and a dragon's eyes are kind of vulnerable, and that species has _really _big eyes, but even so, it's… possibly fine. Cho, would you stop looking at me like that?"

"No, Harry."

"Why not?"

"Because you _wandered into a dragon sanctuary_."

"Actually, keep doing that," said Harry, completing his look around the room. "I think you're scaring off everyone, and sooner or later people are going to come over to talk. This might be the last chance we'll get for me to fill you in on the rest of my, er, what do you call it – "

"Life, Harry. You call it your life," said Cedric.

"Right. My life. Where did we leave it?" Harry cast another _Muffliato_ under the table. He noted, absently, that he got it straight away this time.

"You'd explained all about how Sirius was framed by Peter, how he escaped from Azkaban, and you were just starting to tell us what happened when you were seven," said Cedric.

"The short version is that I went to live with Sirius and a few others in Greece. Albus Dumbledore is the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, so it's convenient for him to be near their base of operations. I was… homeschooled, I guess you could say, but kind of randomly, by whomever happened to be there. And for that to make sense, you have to know one important fact..." Harry set down his glass and looked at his friends directly. "Voldemort isn't dead."

To their credit, they didn't overreact. Cho gasped and Cedric flinched, but it was probably because of the spoken name. Harry's words likely hadn't settled in.

"It's not a secret," said Harry, forging ahead. "We want everyone to know, actually. It's just that no one would believe us. And it's not that he's alive, exactly, it's just that he's not dead. The proof we have is based on rumors Sirius and Remus picked up while tracking Peter, and on whatever the hell's going on with the Dark Mark. I don't quite understand that part, myself, but it's somehow tied to Voldemort's power, his influence, his presence. And it's coming into focus. Has been for a couple years. Dumbledore reckons he's not just a spirit anymore, that he's found some kind of middle ground. A possession, or some kind of temporary body like a homunculus that he'd have gotten with a Dark ritual involving a pregnant – "

"Stop," said Cho, her face ashen and her voice nearly a whisper.

Harry saw that Cedric's hands were nearly white around his silverware. "Sorry," he said softly.

"This is… a lot to take in," said Cedric.

Harry looked away. "I know," he said after a moment. "I probably shouldn't have said it all at once like that."

"It's okay," said Cho, her voice a bit stronger.

Cedric laughed, a hollow sound. "I wouldn't go that far."

"Take some time with it," urged Harry. "He's out there, but he's _been _out there for twelve years. You just didn't know. And there are good people, strong people working on it. I want to introduce you to Sirius if I can. He's dead clever. And between Albus and Nicolas, you've got two of the most brilliant minds in the magical world, even if they are a bit batty."

"Right," said Cedric uncertainly. He looked a little shell-shocked, which Harry felt was quite understandable. Cedric glanced over his shoulder. "Any other bombshells you want to drop on us before someone comes over? It looks like the vultures are circling."

"Not really," said Harry. He waited until Cedric had raised his glass to his lips and then said, "except for the fact that I'm a Parselmouth."

Predictably, Cedric started choking on his water. Cho was back to high-intensity glaring. "Say, Harry," she said ominously. "You know that line you're not supposed to cross when it comes to jokes in tense situations?"

"I'm coming up on it?" asked Harry.

"No, no. Look behind you."

Harry was saved from having to respond by a surly boy with thick black eyebrows and a rather distinctive large, curved nose, who sat down awkwardly next to Cho.

"Is vot they are saying true?" said the boy without preamble. "Does this boy outfly dragon?"

"By all means, have a seat, Viktor," said Cho, apparently still in a foul mood from Harry's joke. Cedric was still trying to clear his throat, but waved hello anyway. "These are my friends, Harry and Cedric. Guys, this is Viktor Krum."

"Nice to meet you," said Harry. "Cho says you're a fair hand on a broom."

"Yes," said Krum, waving his hand dismissively. "Now, tell me of dragon. I vould like details, please. Tell me of, I don't know vord – to escape danger."

"Close calls?" suggested Harry. Krum nodded eagerly. "There were a few. I'll need a new broom, for one thing. I'll miss it, but I'm glad to say it really died a hero. Not many brooms are set on fire via dragon's breath and then explode after crashing into a tree."

Krum scrunched up his face. "You are telling joke?"

Cedric cleared out the last of the water, then fixed Harry with a flat stare. "I think Harry's already hit his joke quota today."

Scowling, Krum turned to Cho. "Your friends are strange."

Cedric looked like he was going to reply, and then his eyes went wide. He was looking over Harry's shoulder, and if Harry didn't know better, he'd have thought Cedric was choking again.

"_Bonjour_, 'Arry," said a familiar voice.

Harry glanced over his shoulder. "Hey, Fleur. So, what's the good word? Are we getting kicked out of Quidditch Camp, or what?"

She shrugged artlessly and slid gracefully into the seat beside Harry.

Cedric cleared his throat loudly. "Harry. You never said the girl you had your little adventure with was… uh…"

Harry looked at him quizzically. "Was what?"

Cho narrowed her eyes. "Yeah, Cedric. Was what?"

"Er…" Cedric looked around the table for help. Harry was baffled. He'd never seen Cedric, who was usually the most collected one in the room, thrown for words like this. "…French," said Cedric.

"Oh, I guess I never mentioned that," said Harry. "I don't suppose any of you speak French?"

Cho shook her head, and Cedric did as well after Cho nudged him, hard, with her elbow.

"I haff enough trouble vith English," grumbled Krum.

"Hmm," said Harry. "Well, how are you with hand gestures?"

* * *

><p>The alarm went off and Harry rolled out of bed and immediately stumbled to the wardrobe, barely awake. It was almost reflex now, and though it was tempting to simply fall asleep on top of a pile of coats in the wardrobe, it was worth it simply because it meant not spending a single waking second longer than he had to at the Dursleys. It was the principle of the thing, really. In practice… well, he'd only fallen asleep a <em>few <em>times inside the wardrobe.

He blinked at the all-encompassing sunlight at the other end of the wardrobe. His room at the Flamels' house opened onto a deck that looked out over a glorious, sparkling white sand beach, the ocean beyond a fantastically alluring blue-green that made for great postcards – though, at the moment, Harry was in the mood to appreciate precisely none of it.

The two men waiting for him on the deck were a study in contrasts. Remus Lupin looked as haggard as Harry did, though for a different reason – Harry, because he hated mornings and mornings hated him, and Remus because the full moon was approaching. The second man looked annoyingly cheerful, considering the hour.

"Ah, good morning, Harry!" said Dumbledore. He was reclining on a deck chair, his usual half-moon spectacles swapped out for a pair of cheap plastic sunglasses. He pushed down the edge of a copy of _Transfiguration Today_ he was holding up and regarded Harry with what passed for a somber expression. "I trust you slept well?"

"It would have been better with another four hours, but I'll make do," said Harry. "Let's just get this over with."

"Are you sure, Harry?" asked Remus with a touch of anxiety. "You look a bit peaky."

"I'm sure. It's better if I'm off my game, remember? That's why I'm up at this ungodly hour."

"You remind me of James so much sometimes," said Remus, a wistful smile coming over his face. "On the weekends, he used to charm the curtains on his bed to mummify anyone who tried to open them before noon."

"Sounds like a smashing idea," said Harry, leaning against the deck railing and rubbing his eyes.

Dumbledore arose from the deck chair and removed his sunglasses, replacing them with his spectacles. He held his wand loosely at his side.

Harry took a deep breath and looked him in the eye.

"Do you know a man named Remus Lupin, Harry?" asked Dumbledore.

"Never heard of him," said Harry. "Strange name, though. Who is he?"

Dumbledore held his glance for a long moment. For Harry, it seemed to stretch out to full minutes. Defending against passive Legilimency took a tricky kind of focused detachment that Harry still hadn't quite mastered. He was getting better, though. There wasn't anything to fight against – rather, it was the magical equivalent of someone blurting, "don't think of a pink elephant!" and shrugging and saying, "fine, I won't." Harry simply let the words _Remus Lupin _bounce around his head without hitting anything that would trigger an emotional response.

"Excellent," murmured Dumbledore at last. "I believe you will have no trouble with direct questions, such as those the Ministry might ask of you. You must be on your guard, however. A clever questioner will find opportunities to upset your balance."

"Noted. And now the real test. Come on, then," said Harry, trying to keep himself relaxed.

Dumbledore seemed to be weighing him, his gaze penetrating.

"It's now or never, right?" said Harry impatiently. "I go back to Hogwarts tomorrow. I need to know if I can do this."

"Very well," said Dumbledore. He raised his wand and pointed it at Harry. "_Legilimens_," he said, almost gently.

The experience wasn't pleasant. Compared to Proudfoot, Dumbledore had an elegant, subtle touch, but it still hit Harry like a punch to the gut. Even so, Harry preferred it – this was something he could fight. He held his mind in a kind of frozen, crystalline void. He felt nothing, he _was _nothing. And yet in his nothingness, he was not without power. He was the abyss, and Dumbledore had been gazing for too long.

He slammed back against Dumbledore's intrusion with a hammer of dark indifference.

This was something Harry could do, something he could fight. A real master, a perfect Occlumens, could let the attacker inside and show them a carefully prepared lie so convincing that it seemed real. It was a subtle, powerfully difficult technique that Snape assured Harry he could spend ten years practicing and never achieve. Harry didn't know if he believed him, and someday he meant to find out, but in the meantime, it was more viscerally satisfying anyway to hit back.

Dumbledore jerked his arm back, his wand dropping, and he swayed on his feet for a moment. "Very good, Harry," he said, grimacing. "You have made remarkable progress this summer. I daresay your experience integrating your true memories and discarding your false ones was excellent preparation for Occlumency."

"Funny how that worked out," said Harry flatly.

"A good plan always dovetails nicely into the next one," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "In any case, you are as secure as you can reasonably be from direct Legilimency attacks. If, by chance, the Ministry employs such direct tactics again, you will be quite able to defend yourself. Although your rather… strident… defense may raise some eyebrows, Occlumency is not illegal. I would recommend you employ this defense sparingly, however."

"Works for me," said Harry, rubbing his temples. "It takes a lot out of me."

"Indeed," said Dumbledore. He looked out over the ocean, his expression distant. "Those who regularly employ Occlumency do so at their own peril. Though it may be an effective means of keeping one's secrets, the long-term costs of such rigid control and suppression of memories and emotions can be quite high. Beware, Harry, of the terrible price we can pay for our control, for our secrets. Often, the cost is a hidden one, not easily seen until it is far too late to rectify."

Harry almost snapped at Dumbledore, then. He'd heard the same lecture before, in different words. It seemed to be how the man operated – repetition, patience, and a flair for the dramatic speech now and again. Something stopped him from voicing his annoyance, though. Something about Dumbledore's expression as he looked out over the water made Harry hold his tongue.

"Ah, it seems the second part of the day's activities is ready to commence!" said Dumbledore, his expression brightening considerably as two figures Apparated onto the beach near the shoreline.

Harry walked down the steps to the beach, holding out a hand and waving. One of the men returned his wave, the other studiously ignored it.

"Sirius! Didn't expect to see you until later today. What're you doing with Snape, anyway?"

Remus and Dumbledore had joined Harry on the beach, and Dumbledore seemed to be busy drawing a line in the sand. Remus waved his wand and conjured a bench behind it.

"I've been recruited as part of a little demonstration, apparently," said Sirius. He was wearing his long, dark hair pulled back with some kind of clasp, which was odd, as he usually wore it loose and fussed with it often. He was wearing his customary pair of jeans and faded, half-buttoned shirt, but today he had an accessory: a black leather belt with a wand holster hung low and slightly crooked on his waist.

Harry gave it a questioning look, and Sirius grinned. "Old-fashioned, I know. Used to be the Auror standard back when James and I were considering the Academy. Fell out of fashion about a decade ago; most duelists go for those fancy wrist holsters nowadays. They're subtler, for sure, but I've seen them get tangled up in sleeves before, and nothing's quicker on the draw than one of these babies."

Sirius put action to words and flicked his wand into his hand. Harry had a strange mental image of Sirius as an old-West gunslinger.

"So what's this all about?" asked Harry.

"My idea," said Remus, coming up beside him. "I thought this would be a good way to send you off. I've been trying to think of a way to get my point across, something I've been trying to teach you for a long time. You know how you keep asking to learn dueling, how you keep wanting to learn advanced curses, tactics, stances, stuff like that?"

"I want to know how to fight, yes," said Harry cautiously. It was an old argument, one that he'd never really won.

"Yes," said Remus, a bit sadly. "And no one is thrilled by that, given your age. But we understand it. These aren't typical circumstances. However… what I've been trying to tell you, Harry, is that teaching you those things would be a bad idea. Not because you're too young to learn them, but because it would be too limiting."

"I still don't understand," said Harry.

"I know," said Remus. "And that's the idea I had. I've told you every way I know how. But I think it will be better to show you."

Remus gestured towards the bench, where Dumbledore was already sitting. He'd summoned his magazine and was humming to himself and reading. Harry sat in the middle, and Remus sat beside him.

Harry watched as Sirius and Snape walked a short distance away from each other. They stood apart, facing each other, unmoving for a time. Snape looked cool and impassive, whereas Sirius had an almost expectant, dangerous grin on his face.

They bowed. Slightly. Harry thought Sirius's two-fingered salute at the end probably wasn't traditional.

And then they were in motion. Snape drew his wand smoothly from his robes, dropping to a knee in the same action. Sirius had drawn from his holster impossibly fast, a jet of angry orange light passing over Snape's left shoulder.

Snape flicked his wand and shot dark red spells, one after the other, at Sirius. They were aimed low, and Sirius jumped out of the way. The spells left a hissing, burning spot on the sand where they connected. Instead of pressing his advantage, Snape swept his wand in a tight circle, conjuring a rough-hewn block of stone that he ducked behind. He seemed to be predicting Sirius's movements as Sirius's counterstrike, a powerful-looking blast of white light, only made the stone block shudder slightly.

"What does it remind you of?" asked Remus.

Harry watched, entranced, as they traded spells. He'd never seen them duel like this. They weren't trying to kill each other, obviously, but it looked a near thing. The spells Harry recognized weren't exactly Stunners. He flinched back as a sickly yellow spell shot towards the bench, deflected by Sirius with a quick bit of wand-work. The spell impacted a shield that shimmered briefly before fading back into invisibility – a shield that sprang into being directly above the line Dumbledore had drawn in the sand.

"A gunfight," said Harry. And it was true. The quick, staccato blasts of light. The way they used cover. The ebb and flow of the battle, like an exchange of shots.

Sirius charged. Roaring, he fired spell after spell at Snape, who was forced back. The tempo of the duel increased. The slashing, angry wand gestures. The way the lights of the spells were deflected, crackling against each other as the range decreased. The footwork, how Snape danced away from Sirius's aggressive strikes, turning them back, how Sirius charged ahead, each step pressing the other man.

"Or a swordfight," said Harry.

"Yes," said Remus. "That's what dueling looks like. That's what most real fighting looks like, too. When a pair of Aurors pin down a criminal and it becomes a pitched firefight, it usually looks something like this."

Snape had turned the tide; Sirius's aggression had cost him. Snape sent a spell that was almost black right at the other man's head, and Sirius was forced to cast a thick, heavy Shield Charm. Even so, the impact sent him staggering back, and Snape pressed his advantage.

Sirius dove to his right, snapping off a Bludgeoning Hex at just the right moment. Snape, who was mid-cast, could only twist to avoid it and it struck him in the ankle. He snarled, going to one knee, and slashed the air with his wand. Sirius, prone on the ground, rolled away and cried out as the spell tore through his shirt, his shoulder jerking with a crack that Harry could hear from fifty feet away.

"That's enough!" called Remus, standing up. Sirius and Snape both got to their feet, their expressions unreadable. "I didn't mean for you two to get vicious, but I suppose it was an effective demonstration." He turned to Harry. "So, what did you think? Did that meet your expectations? Is that what you want to learn how to do?"

"Well, yeah," said Harry, sensing he was walking into a trap but not able to see it.

"Don't be so sure," said Remus with a faint trace of smugness. He coughed. Then again, louder. He looked over Harry's head in irritation. "Albus, the whole 'inscrutable wisdom' routine works a lot better when you pick up on the signals."

"Ah, forgive me, Remus," said Dumbledore, folding his magazine neatly on the bench. "I was just reading the most fascinating article about the sixteen tertiary exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration…" he looked up. "Perhaps another time."

Dumbledore stood and up and walked down the beach, stepping with care over the line he'd drawn. Sirius and Snape now stood loosely together, eying each other warily.

"Gentlemen," said Dumbledore, bowing smoothly. Sirius and Snape exchanged a hooded glance, then faced Dumbledore and bowed back.

Harry leaned forward in anticipation.

They were quick, very quick. Sirius's silver spell was aimed high and left, at Dumbledore's shoulder, and Snape's violet jet of light was aimed low and right. Harry filed it away for future reference, something to tease his godfather about at a later date – for all ways in which the two of them couldn't stand each other, apparently Sirius and Snape made a decent team.

As the spells converged on him, Dumbledore flicked his wand almost casually, and the sand sprung up in front of him. The creature was shaped like a lion, or a bear – something large and with four legs, anyway. The sand-creature leaped forward, its paws absorbing the spells as it threw itself, bodily, at the two duelists.

Sirius tried diving out of the way, whereas Snape took a more direct approach, conjuring a blast of wind and directing it towards the oncoming sand lion. The creature burst apart, but the cloud of sand seemed to have a mind of its own, swirling angrily into a miniature tornado. Snape tried desperately to hold it off, fighting a losing battle as he directed wind against a storm of sand. Sirius, meanwhile, was taking advantage of the cover to take potshots at Dumbledore, who hadn't moved yet.

Dumbledore casually stepped out of the way of one curse, sweeping his wand even as he moved and leaving a trail of fire in his wake, living, twisting flame that seemed to crystallize in place. Sirius's second spell hit the shield of flame, which pulsed with dark, angry light for a second, and then expelled the curse back the way it came, but faster, and – judging from the way it made the hair on the back of Harry's neck stand up as it passed – with much more power.

Sirius and Snape took cover behind a hastily conjured wall of steel as the spell literally exploded in front of them, sending them clattering to the sand in a messy heap.

Dumbledore flicked his wand again.

Sirius and Snape were back on their feet, hastily exchanging a few words, no doubt planning another attack, when the wave took them. One of the gentle, foot-high waves that had been lapping peacefully at the shore all morning spouted up to a ten-foot monstrosity with a frothing, scary-looking crest and rushed up the beach, crashing over the beleaguered duelists. Instead of washing away, the water remained, trapping them. Dumbledore took careful aim and waved his wand in a complicated motion. The water started collapsing in on itself, twisting, turning, contorting itself into thin lines.

A few seconds later, Sirius and Snape were trussed up in ropes of living water, breathing hard and completely immobilized.

The whole thing had taken less than thirty seconds, and Harry was pretty sure that had been for his benefit, that if Dumbledore had wanted to, he could have done it in _three _seconds. It was on another level altogether. Every move, calculated. Every defense, an attack at the same time. Harry let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"You see," said Remus, "you'll never learn to do _that_ if you set out by learning how to fight. Aurors are specialists. You narrow your focus that much, and you eventually start limiting yourself in some pretty serious ways. Be a generalist, Harry. Dumbledore's a generalist. If you only learn about magic that helps you fight, you'll get good at it, no question. And faster, too. With the head start that you've got, if you start learning to duel, you could probably take any student at Hogwarts by the end of the year."

Harry watched as Dumbledore dispelled the water-ropes, going over to the downed combatants, exchanging words with them, joking, laughing. He didn't look at all intimidating.

"But," continued Remus, "if you learn about everything, if you cast a wide net, if you embrace magic as a whole, if you leave no stone unturned… things will be slow. By the end of the year, you might not even be noticeably stronger at all. But there will come a time when something will click. You'll understand something, see some kind of order in the chaos, some fundamental truth. It clicked for Dumbledore when he was a third year. It clicked for your mother when she was out of Hogwarts and engaged to James. And I firmly believe that if she were alive right now, she'd give Dumbledore a run for his money."

Remus stood, and rested a hand on Harry's shoulder for a moment. "Be a generalist, Harry. It's the harder road, the longer road, but you have it in you. I've seen it. You put in the time, you make an honest effort, and you'll be an _absolute nightmare _on the battlefield. Trust me."

And he walked away, going to join the others on the beach.

Harry sat there for a long while, his head propped up by his arms, thinking.

* * *

><p>September 1st was chilly that year. Harry stood in the square outside King's Cross. The morning hustle and bustle was in full swing, and Harry, Remus, and Sirius were ensconced at the edge of the crowd, Remus's subtle Muggle-Repelling Charm ensuring them a pocket of space. Remus wore his own face, but Sirius had taken Polyjuice and looked like a nondescript man in his fifties – even a dozen years later, any whiff of Sirius Black popping up in London would be a front-page panic.<p>

"Got everything, Harry?" asked Sirius. "All set?"

Harry glanced at his feet, where Hedwig's cage sat atop his school trunk. He patted his coat and felt for the hidden inner pocket in the lining, which had been enhanced with an Undetectable Extension Charm. "All set. No, wait, actually, I forgot something."

Remus frowned. "We can't exactly head back now; the train leaves in fifteen minutes."

"No, I mean I forgot to do something." He fished around his hidden pocket, careful not to let his hand slip too far into his coat. He came up with a letter, slightly creased. "I got this a couple days ago. It's from someone I met at Quidditch Camp. The problem is, it's in French. I was hoping you could get Perenelle to translate it for me?"

"A friend, huh?" said Sirius. "This would be the girl who recklessly led you on a race through a dragon sanctuary?"

"I don't know why you guys are so hung up on that. I think it's a brilliant story. And it's not like it was _that _big a deal. We didn't even get suspended or banned or anything."

"Well, _I _almost suspended you," growled Sirius. "I nearly came down and pulled you out when I heard about it."

"But you didn't," said Harry. He opened the envelope and separated the letter from the picture Fleur had paper-clipped to it.

"Hang on, what's that?" asked Remus.

"Just a picture," said Harry. "I'm guessing Fleur wanted to show me what her house looked like? I don't know. I've never actually talked to her. That's what I'm hoping Perenelle can help me with. I want to send a photo back, at least. I didn't want to send a picture of the Dursleys, and I can't very well send her a picture of the island, so I thought I'd wait until I get to Hogwarts and send her a picture of that."

Remus held out his hand for the photo, and Harry passed it to him. Remus blinked, holding it closer. "Well. I wasn't expecting… that is, when you picture the type of girl who attends Quidditch camp, you naturally think of someone a bit more, ah… what I mean to say is…"

Sirius snatched the photo out of Remus's grasp. He looked at it and let out a long whistle. "That is one good-looking teenager," he said bluntly.

Arching an eyebrow was Remus's only response, but that one look spoke volumes.

"What?" said Sirius after a moment, glancing up and seeing Remus's look.

"How old do you think she is?" asked Remus casually.

"I don't know, fourteen?"

Remus started inspecting his fingernails. "And how old do you think _you_ are, Padfoot?"

Sirius glanced down at the picture again. "Oh, goddamn it."

Harry snatched the picture back, stuffed it in his pocket, and passed the letter to Remus. "What is _wrong _with the two of you?"

"We don't have that kind of time," said Sirius.

Remus smiled faintly as he glanced at his watch. "Agreed. Now, Harry, you're clear on your role this year? We know Voldemort is interested in Hogwarts, and we know he's _very _interested in you. Without a real body, that means he'll work through proxies. We'll all be working hard back home to find him and stop him, but if he _does _have someone there, and you catch on, it's not your job to confront him, it's not your job to figure out what he's planning, and it's certainly not your job to thwart him. It's your job to alert us."

"I remember the plan," said Harry. He shrugged. "Sounds good on paper."

Sirius and Remus glanced at each other, and Sirius rubbed the bridge of his nose, scowling.

"All right, then," said Remus. He knelt down next to Harry's trunk, setting Hedwig's cage aside, and drew a key ring with several glittering golden keys from his pocket. "Sirius and I have a couple last-minute gifts for you." He flicked through the keys, chose one, and unlocked Harry's trunk with it. "I guess the first one is that we made a couple modifications to your trunk."

Harry blinked. Instead of his robes, quills, parchment, and books, the only thing in the trunk was a broom. It was resting in a finely-crafted wooden cradle, taking up the entire compartment.

The broom almost glowed. It was beautiful, sleek, and very _fast_ looking. The words _Nimbus 2000_ were etched along the handle in golden letters.

"Just came out last month," said Remus quietly as Harry took it in. "Top of the line model."

"I'm trying very hard to forget _why _you need a new one, but since you do, might as well be a good one," said Sirius.

Harry ran his hand over the handle. He turned and gave Remus a tight hug. "Thanks. This is… just, thanks."

Sirius stepped forward, closed the trunk lid, and then started fiddling with the keychain. "So this last gift isn't really a gift… I mean, it is, but it's more like an inheritance. You've already got your dad's Cloak – keep it in your pocket _at all times_, remember – but this belonged to him to, and even if it's not as useful, I thought you'd still – ah, there we go."

The trunk opened with a click, and Harry peered inside. It was looked empty, but Sirius fished around and came up with something. It was a belt and wand holster of the same style Sirius had worn for the dueling demonstration, except this one was a mellow, faded brown leather instead of black.

"James wore this all the time," said Sirius in a quiet voice as he handed it to Harry. "He'd want you to have it."

Harry couldn't speak. He ran his hands over the length of the belt and found himself staring at one of the notches. The hole was worn, rough around the edges. _That was the one my dad used_, thought Harry. _That's where it fit him_.

He thought about putting it on right then and there, but it was a little too much. He felt his throat tighten as he set the belt down in his trunk reverently, as though it were delicate gossamer. "I'll try it on later," he said in a rough, shaky voice.

Sirius didn't say anything, he just hugged Harry.

"Have a good year," said Remus. "You can contact us any time. You've got ways to do it now. We're with you."

"Right," said Harry, pretty much reduced to one syllable at a time.

"I'll walk you to the barrier," said Sirius.

Remus gave him another pat on the shoulder, and then Harry started moving through the crowd, his godfather at his side, his trunk and his owl behind him. It was the work of a few minutes to make their way through King's Cross. As they neared Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, Sirius stopped, moving off behind a ticket counter and gesturing for Harry to follow. He cast a quick _Muffliato._

"I'm on your side," said Sirius abruptly.

"I know that," said Harry, still a bit off-balance.

"I mean it," said Sirius. "I know it's not easy, keeping all these secrets. You have to pick who to trust, and things will inevitably get murky and complicated, and it'll be messy. I know you. You're going to keep some things entirely to yourself."

Harry tried not to react, thinking immediately of his mother's journal, safely hidden in the secret pocket in his coat.

"And that's okay," continued Sirius. "You should have your own secrets, too. But I just want you to know that I'm always on your side." Sirius took a deep breath and looked at him steadily. "Voldemort wants to kill you. The Ministry will want to prop you up as a hero or tear you down as a villain, whatever serves their public image and the status quo best. Dumbledore wants to beat Voldemort, and he sees you as a part of that. He's a powerful wizard and a kind man, but I've fought on his side and I've seen him sacrifice ten to save fifty. The vast majority of the public will want you to solve all their Dark Lord problems while they find reasons to complain about you and put you up on a pedestal at the same time."

Sirius looked away, and Harry saw a tear form in his eye that Sirius quickly blinked away. He looked very fierce in that moment. "But me… I'm just in your corner. I don't give a shit what happens to the world. I just want things to go well for you. Your parents – my best friend – got monumentally screwed, and I see it as my job to force the universe to repay that debt."

Harry nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He gathered up his trunk and Hedwig's cage.

Sirius clapped him on the shoulder, nodded back, turned, and started walking away.

Harry shouldered his way through the crowd and slipped through the barrier. The platform was even busier than he remembered; people were moving very quickly. The blue-and-bronze Hogwarts Express blew a shrill whistle, and the shouted goodbyes and frantic, last-minute missives were rushed even further.

There was Cho, leaning out from a compartment near the end of the train. She caught Harry's eye and grinned madly, pointing to the train's color. She yelped as Cedric pulled her back inside. There was Katie Bell, struggling to heft her trunk into the train. Fred and George Weasley were suddenly there, sweeping it from her arms, bowing extravagantly, and whatever they said made Katie blush furiously and take a swing at them. There was Mike Vaisey exchanging words with the Slytherin Quidditch Captain, Marcus Flint, the two of them in some kind of heated debate that was so intense they didn't even seem to realize the train was about to leave. There were new faces Harry didn't recognize: brand-new first years all wearing a similar look of eager, frightened expectation.

Harry squared his shoulders. He patted the breast of his coat. Inside his secret pocket, among other things, he had his father's Cloak of Invisibility, his mother's journal, and one of Sirius's two-way mirrors. Inside his head he had his true memories, more than four years of knowledge, techniques, theories, and experiences.

Harry felt a warm, blazing feeling, like he was ready to conquer the world. "Okay. Year two. Here we go."

* * *

><p><strong>Have a suggestion? Comment? Question? Think you've spotted an embarrassing typo? Leave me a review and tell me all about it. Reviews are writing fuel.<strong>


	6. Chapter 5 - Seekers and Sought

**Author's Note: The holidays messed with my schedule a bit, thus, the wait for this chapter. My goal for this fic is to produce a chapter every ~2 weeks, and have that chapter be roughly 10,000 words, which is a decent length to sink into. That's a fairly quick pace of writing, so I may not always hit that goal. I appreciate the continued support, very much. **

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5 – Seekers and Sought<strong>

Harry's good mood lasted approximately five minutes.

After shoving through the crowded corridor of the train, after hurried greetings to casual acquaintances, after dragging his things into Cho and Cedric's compartment, after nearly falling over as the train jerked into motion just as Harry was securing his trunk on the luggage rack – after all of it, the only thing he wanted to do was sit in the corner and rest his head against the window.

It wasn't to be. A minute after the train started moving, Cho's friend Marietta stuck her head into the compartment.

"Cho!" Her happy, squealing voice was the aural equivalent of a low-grade sunburn: just annoying enough that it was impossible to ignore. "Did you have a good summer?"

"I did, thanks!" replied Cho. "We had a grand time at Quidditch Camp."

"I heard," said Marietta, singularly focused on Cho. "Did Harry really fight a dragon? It's all over the train."

"Harry's sitting right here, thanks," said Harry.

"Oh, right. Hi, Harry. And Cedric." Marietta half-glanced at Cedric and blushed. "Good to see you both."

"Hmm?" Cedric had a somewhat baffled grin on his face as he eyed the pair of giggling fourth-year girls currently walking past the compartment.

Cho reached over and smacked him with a practiced motion. "You're not going to be like this all the time now that you're thirteen, right?"

"Huh?" Cedric tore his gaze away from the fourth-years and gave Cho a puzzled frown.

"Does being a teenager reduce you to monosyllables?" asked Harry. "If so, I don't think it's for me."

"I feel very ganged-up on right now," said Cedric. He reached under his seat and pulled out a thick textbook. "I think the best thing for me to do would be to go over this material for Ancient Runes."

"Oh, that's right, you're taking electives this year," gushed Marietta. "What else are you taking?"

"Arithmancy, of course," said Cedric. "It's dead useful. And Care of Magical Creatures – Potions is my best class, and there's some crossover potential. You know, harvesting your own ingredients and stuff."

"Lots of new things this year, then," said Marietta. "New classes, and you'll be able to visit Hogsmeade. Maybe you could pick up some things for me at Honeydukes?

She batted her eyelashes. Harry was floored. _Girls actually do that?_

"I'm sure Cedric can pick up stuff for you too, Cho, and for Harry as well," she continued blithely. "It'll be a bit odd, though, won't it? The three of you are usually thick as thieves, and Cedric's going to be doing all these new things without you." Her eyes widened. "Oh! And what happens if all three of you actually make it onto Quidditch teams? You'll have to play against each other all the time. I imagine that would be horribly stressful."

Either ignoring or completely missing the tension in the air, Marietta got to her feet. "Well, I should get back to my compartment. Cho, you should stop by. I'm sure the girls would love to see you. You know, if you get the chance." With a final, quick smile at Cedric, she left.

The silence in the compartment stretched to an uncomfortable number of seconds.

"Well," said Harry, "that was subtle."

"I know," said Cho, scowling. "She wasn't happy about the whole Quidditch Camp thing. She thinks I'm abandoning all my Ravenclaw friends or something."

"I meant the other thing, actually."

"Yeah, what was that all about?" asked Cedric. "She was looking at me weird."

Harry and Cho glanced at each other.

Harry drew his wand, pointed it at his own head, and cast a Deafness Hex. "All yours, Cho," he said, too loudly, unable to hear his own voice.

He busied himself letting Hedwig out of her cage, bending and very consciously not looking up for a solid thirty seconds. When he did come up – Hedwig immediately flying to Cho's shoulder – he applied the counter-curse. Cho and Cedric had evidently finished their conversation, and both were blushing faintly.

"Just so we're clear, I'm opting out of all those kinds of conversations for at least another year," said Harry. "Possibly forever."

Cedric shot him a dubious grin, and Cho bit her lip. "I don't know if that's realistic, Harry," she said. "You're famous and everything, and if for no other reason than that, you're going to have to deal with girls eventually."

"You could keep doing what you're doing and wear thick glasses and ratty clothes, though," said Cedric. "That'll keep 'em off your back for a while."

"Thanks so much," said Harry. "I've always wanted to be known for my completely unfounded fame and my terrible fashion sense, so that's good."

Cho shrugged, the motion jostling Hedwig. "You do wear awful clothes, Harry. Though I can't see why. You bought those brooms last year, so I can't imagine it being a big deal to have a few other nice things."

"These are my cousin's hand-me-downs," said Harry, glancing at his faded, torn jeans and too-large grey t-shirt. "It might be suspicious if my ridiculously mean family gave me nice clothes. And besides, what could it possibly matter? They're clothes – who gives a damn?"

Cedric fingered the collar of his neatly pressed button-down nervously, and Cho crossed her legs under her fashionable skirt.

"Give it time, Harry," said Cho, her lips quirking into an insufferably knowing smirk. "I bet this time next year you'll be singing a different tune."

"I'll take that bet," said Harry promptly. "Five Galleons?"

Cho hesitated, and Cedric nudged her. "Go for it," he said. "You can't fight hormones."

"Fine," snapped Cho. "You're on." She stretched out her hand – once against shifting Hedwig, who hooted in protest – and Harry shook it.

"Money for nothing," said Harry, grinning. "This is just too easy."

"I'm going to laugh at you _so much _next year when you show up in designer jeans," said Cho.

"Yeah, yeah," said Harry, waving his hand dismissively. "Just keep those Galleons handy." He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head. "You know, even if Marietta was being a bit rude about it, she's not wrong. Especially considering my, you know, memory thing. I have all this new information in my head… like, did you know I'm kind of terrified of deep water?"

Cedric raised an eyebrow. "Since when? You never mentioned anything like that."

"I know," said Harry. "I couldn't remember. But when I was nine, I swam out – "

The compartment door slid open and three redheads entered. Fred and George Weasley had a third boy – gangly, freckled, a bit shorter – sandwiched between them with two arms over his shoulder, the camaraderie spoiled by the younger boy's petulant frown as he was dragged along.

"Ah, there you are," said George. "Tales of your Quidditch Camp exploits seem to be the popular topic on the train, Harry."

"Exaggerated, I'm sure," said Harry. "Only my broom got scorched by the dragon, nothing else."

"Dragon?" said Fred. "We were talking about some blindingly hot French girl you apparently made friends with."

Harry shot Cho an irritated glare. "What, did you run up and down the train with a bell like a town crier?"

"Anyway, we're just making the rounds," said George. "As you can see, Eustis had a run-in with a bad batch of Aging Potion, and it's made him all tetchy and gangly. Calls himself 'Ron' now, the poor deluded fellow."

"Hi," said Ron shortly. "You seem to know Fred and George pretty well, so I don't need to apologize for them, right?"

"Nah, we're used to it," said Cedric.

"Nice to meet you," said Cho.

"Hey, hang on, you look like – " Ron was looking at Harry, but Fred and George dragged him away, waving goodbye, no doubt moving on to other, more embarrassing introductions for their younger brother.

"Anyway," said Cedric, turning to Harry. "What were you saying about being afraid of water?"

"Deep water," said Harry. "Not all water. That would be a problem. And really, it's not deep water so much as water you can't see the bottom of. It's like, what's down there? I don't know. Could be anything. Could be rocket sharks."

"What exactly are – "

"Doesn't matter. The point is, when I was nine, I was messing around on the beach of the Flamels' island, and I swam – "

The compartment door slid open, and Mike Vaisey stuck his head in. "Potter," he said without preamble, "I wanted to ask you a favor."

Harry sighed. "I'm not going to be target practice for Bludgers, Vaisey, not again. It was fun the first time, but it got old pretty fast."

"Please?" wheedled Vaisey. "I need to shake off the rust. Slytherin holds tryouts right away. I think it's because Muggle-borns can't stay sharp over the summer and everyone else can."

"That's pretty low," said Cedric.

"That's Slytherin," said Vaisey, shrugging. "Squeeze out every little advantage you can."

"We'll all help you, Mike," said Cho. "Tomorrow morning before breakfast." Harry and Cedric groaned, and Cho rounded on them. "Well, I for one wouldn't mind having someone on the Slytherin team who wasn't a complete troll. Did you see the Chaser line Flint rolled out last year? They could barely _fit _through the hoops, much less hit them."

Vaisey narrowed his eyes. "It's not like I'm going to go easy on you, assuming we all make it."

"Of course not," said Cho sweetly. "I just like my opponents to be smart enough that they can understand how thoroughly they're beaten."

"Wow, Chang," said Vaisey with a low whistle, "what exactly did you guys study at that Quidditch Camp?"

"Cho was scary long before this summer," said Cedric.

"Right," said Vaisey. "Anyway, thanks. I really appreciate it. Tomorrow morning, then? Early?"

Harry groaned. "I was just starting to warm up to you, Vaisey. Now, not so much. If this turns out to be some convoluted Slytherin scheme to turn me evil via sleep deprivation, I'm putting doxy eggs in your pumpkin juice."

"You're talking about someone who likes Marmite, Harry," said Cedric. "I doubt he'd even notice."

"Yeah, yeah," said Vaisey, stepping out into the hallway. "See you tomorrow. Thanks!" He slid the door shut.

Harry paused for a long beat, looking at the door, then sank back into the seat. "Finally. Now where was I? I swear, the next person who interrupts my story is getting hexed."

The door slid open, the sound of it rattling along the track covering Harry's muttered expletive. A girl stuck her head into the compartment, then walked in, bold as brass.

"Excuse me, have you seen a toad? Neville's lost one." The girl, who was already wearing her Hogwarts robes, had an assertive sort of voice, brown hair, and rather prominent front teeth. "We've been up and down the carriage, and no one seems to be able to help, including the prefects, which I think is rather sloppy for prefects, don't you? Is that a messenger owl?" She pointed at Hedwig, who was snoozing on Cho's shoulder. "I wanted to get an owl, but my parents were a bit nervous about it. Nobody in my family's magic at all, you see. Did you know you're not supposed to have pets out of their cages on the train? I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

She said it all very fast, and in one breath.

"Cedric. Cedric Diggory," said a slightly stunned Cedric.

Hermione beamed at him, then glanced at Harry. "Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then."

Harry had been staring at the girl, twirling his wand idly in his fingers as she talked, the tip slowing down on each revolution as it pointed at her.

Cedric glanced Harry's way, and in a flash, was politely pushing Hermione out of the compartment. "No one's seen a toad, nice to meet you, thanks, bye!"

"What?" said Harry, "I was going to show her some magic."

"That," said Cedric, "is what I was afraid of."

Cho started laughing helplessly. "That girl is so going to be in Ravenclaw."

"Okay, this time, I'm really serious," said Harry. "Let's lock the door or something. It's not even that good a story. I'd just like to get the whole thing out without – "

The compartment door slid open.

The boy who walked in had his hair slicked back, and it was so blond it was radioactive. He was flanked by two others: large, broad-shouldered boys, both of whom had bowl cuts and similar looks of grimacing menace.

"Harry Potter, right?" said the blond boy. His voice had the timbre of a bored aristocrat, albeit a prepubescent one. "Someone said I could find you here. I thought you'd look a bit more impressive. Why are you dressed like some kind of peasant?"

Harry blinked. "Do you always introduce yourself like that? You must not have very many friends."

The blond boy puffed out his chest. "Please. Friends come to _me_. I wouldn't even be here now except that my father says I'm supposed to take you under my wing, though I can't see why. You seem to have already thrown in with half-bloods and blood-traitors, and you're a Gryffindor besides. I suppose I can set you straight, though. Come along, and I'll introduce you to some of the right sort of people."

Cedric had a fishlike expression on his face, and Cho was looking at the boy like he was something nasty she'd scraped off her boots.

Harry was almost lost for words, but not quite. "Are you for real?" he managed.

The boy's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Do you know who I am?" he said, in what would have been a cold, steely voice except for the fact that it was coming out of an eleven-year old.

"Right, that's it," said Harry. He sprang to his feet, shoving the blond boy out of the compartment. Harry moved to close the door, but one of the boy's thuggish companions stuck out his foot, blocking it. Harry scowled and pulled his wand. The blonde boy opened his mouth to say something, and Harry swung his wand forward in a whipping motion, sending out a bright streak of light that whistled and exploded with a bang on the door to the next carriage.

Harry's voice carried to the entire carriage, and, their attention grabbed by the light and sound, a multitude of doors opened and curious students peeked their heads out to watch.

"ATTENTION, HOGWARTS EXPRESS." Harry's voice was a stentorian bellow. "WE HAVE A CHILD IN CARRIAGE FOUR WHO _DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS_. IF ANYONE KNOWS A SMALL, PALE BOY WHO SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN DIPPED HEADFIRST INTO A VAT OF HAIR GEL, PLEASE COME COLLECT HIM NOW."

The blond boy flushed, opened his mouth to say something, was completely drowned out by Harry's voice, and then spun in a huff and left, his henchmen in tow. Harry's voice followed them down the corridor and chased them out of the carriage.

"ADDITIONALLY, IF ANYONE HAS ANY BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION THAT CAN HELP CAPTAIN PEROXIDE HERE SORT OUT HIS IDENTITY ISSUES, PLEASE CONTACT ST. MUNGO'S SPELL DAMAGE WARD IMMEDIATELY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME."

Harry stepped back into the compartment, sat down, and closed his eyes. He leaned back in his seat, smiling the contented smile of a job well done.

Cho peeked out from behind her hands. "Is it over?"

"That," said Cedric cautiously, "was not very nice. I mean sure, that kid was pretty rude, but did he really deserve that?"

"You're barking," said Harry. "If anything, I looked like the crazy one in that exchange. Whoever that was gets to go back to his little circle of friends with a funny, interesting story. Stories like that are like currency around here. If you really want to be picky about it, I _helped _him."

Cedric pursed his lips and stared at Harry. "Do you actually believe that garbage that just came out of your mouth?"

Harry shrugged, wobbling his hand in a side-to-side motion.

"Well, if you're going to tell us the story after all that, it had better be worth it," said Cho.

It wasn't.

* * *

><p>Even in mid-September, Harry needed a warm jacket to sit in the Quidditch stands for any length of time. He rubbed the back of his neck as the Ravenclaw Chaser hopefuls ran through an interminable passing drill; it felt like he'd been sitting there for hours.<p>

Mike Vaisey sat to his right. The second-year Slytherin was still flush with victory; he was a starting Beater for his House team, and apparently that was all he wanted out of life. He was either there at the Ravenclaw tryouts to support Cho (who had followed through on her promise to drag Harry and Cedric to the pitch on the first day back) or, more likely, as a scout for Slytherin, a job relegated to the low man on the team's totem pole. If that was the case, he didn't seem to mind.

Cedric sat to his left. Cedric's tryout had been a nail-biter. Gabriel Truman had graduated, leaving a vacancy at Seeker, but Cedric had some unexpected competition from a sixth-year named Hailey Weatherby. She was a short, willowy brunette who could turn on a dime, and even with Cedric's superior skill, it was a close-run thing. He'd caught the Snitch in an all-out desperation dive, nearly crashing. Nevertheless, Cedric Diggory was Hufflepuff's newly-minted Seeker.

Harry's own tryout had been rather anticlimactic: he'd been the only one trying out for the Seeker position, Oliver Wood had started hyperventilating at the sight of Harry's Nimbus Two-Thousand, and after seeing Harry fly it for less than ten seconds, he waved him down and moved on to the Chasers. Harry had stayed to watch Katie audition for, and ultimately win a spot on the Chaser line with her friends Angelina and Alicia.

"This is taking forever," muttered Cedric. The Ravenclaw Captain was conferring with the rest of the team while the Chaser hopefuls hovered in the air, anxiously awaiting their fate.

"They _are_ fairly meticulous about it," said Vaisey. Harry couldn't tell if his tone was irritation or grudging respect. "Ravenclaws. They probably have some sort of vote and weighted average scoring system."

After another minute, the Ravenclaw team broke their huddle and the Captain signaled to one of the people hovering in the air – Harry cautiously tagged him as Davies. Roland Davies? Rick Davies? Something like that. Davies pumped his fist and flew down to receive congratulations. Next up were the Seekers. Harry watched as Cho lined up with the other two candidates: a fifth-year Harry didn't know, and Eddie Carmichael from their year.

"Okay," muttered Cedric. "You can do this."

"Steady on, Diggory," said Vaisey. "It's not like _you're_ trying out."

"I know that," said Cedric, his eyes locked on the pitch. "I just… I really want this for her. You have no idea how much it means to her."

"I have some idea," said Vaisey. "I know how much it meant to _me_."

The three Seeker candidates kicked off and started doing laps around the pitch. The Ravenclaw Captain called out instructions – Harry couldn't make them out from the top of the stands – and directed them through a series of quick-twitch maneuvering drills. Cho came out of them looking very good indeed, to Harry's eye, but Eddie Carmichael outflew her on the next round of drills, which were mostly speed-based.

Cedric was practically on the edge of his seat.

"Stop worrying so much, Cedric," said Harry. "Just wait for the hand-eye drills; she's golden."

Harry's comment turned out to be prophetic. The Ravenclaw Captain pulled out a bag of golf balls and started Banishing them into the air. Cho and the others scurried after them, swooping and diving. After a dozen or so, one of the Chasers started enchanting the balls to cheat gravity a little, zigzagging from a parabolic arc and bouncing in random directions.

Cho snapped them up like candy, including one particularly memorable catch that she made under Eddie Carmichael's nose while inverted.

In the end, she was the easy choice, and her whoop of triumph was audible at the top of the stands. Cho barely stuck around long enough to shake the hands of the Ravenclaw team before she hopped back on her broom and shot up towards Harry and Cedric. She dismounted, her broom clattering off the bench as she threw herself at them, catching each of them around a shoulder with one arm. She was laughing, smiling so hard Harry thought she looked a bit deranged, and the three of them collapsed on the bench in a tangle of arms and legs.

"Congratulations, Cho," said Vaisey, edging back from them a bit. "Now, would you get up? People are starting to stare."

Cho straightened up, rearranging her Quidditch robes. Harry fiddled with his glasses, which were askew.

"This is going to be strange and awkward," said Cedric, "but for now, let's just enjoy the moment."

They walked down the stairs and away from the pitch, Vaisey shaking Cho's hand and peeling off as they neared the field. He jogged over to the Ravenclaw team, which was dispersing, and started talking with the new Chaser, Davies. Harry, Cho, and Cedric kept walking out of the stadium and towards the castle.

Cedric tugged on Cho's arm when they were about halfway there, directing them to a little copse of trees between the Black Lake and the edge of the Forbidden Forest proper.

"Hey now," said Harry. "Let's keep it at least a hundred feet away from the lake. How long are the tentacles on the Giant Squid, anyway? Maybe two hundred feet would be safer."

"This is an interesting new side of you, Harry," said Cho, plopping down on the matted turf and starting to tug off her thick leather gloves. "Why can't you be afraid of something sensible, like snakes?"

"I can _talk_ to snakes. I can ask them nicely not to murder me in my sleep. I can't ask the Black Lake not to be huge and unsettling."

Cedric was rummaging around in his messenger bag, shifting aside rolls of parchment. "They're in here somewhere… hah!" He pulled out three dusty bottles of butterbeer, twisted off the caps, and handed them out.

"Anyway, nice work getting the spot, Cho," said Harry. "I was confident the whole time that you'd get it. Cedric wasn't. He was a mess."

"That's sweet," said Cho, glancing at Cedric, ducking her head and smiling.

"Hey! I was the one who had complete faith in your abilities and everything."

Cedric cleared his throat, cutting them off. He held up his bottle, and Cho and Harry followed suit. "To the Seekers," he said softly. They clinked the bottles together, and drank.

"It _is_ going to be weird, being against each other all the time," said Harry, wiping off his mouth. "We'll just have to agree that whichever one of us is in the stands is a neutral party. That, and to beat the hell out of Slytherin."

"I think I can live with that," said Cedric.

"No hard feelings when we win the Cup," said Cho, and her smile was cocky but also a little uncertain.

"Right," said Harry. He took another drink, the liquid settling in his gut like a pleasant, gentle fire. "No hard feelings."

* * *

><p>The weeks seemed to blend into each other, and before Harry even realized it, it was October. Then, <em>mid<em>-October.

It had all spiraled out of control so quickly. Cedric had extra classes, Cho was gently strong-armed into spending more time with the Ravenclaw girls, Harry was spending more and more free time in dusty, unexplored hallways of the castle with his mother's journal in his hand, retracing her steps, and they all had Quidditch practice at three separate times. Just like that, the time Harry actually spent with his two best friends was cut down to hurried conversations in the Great Hall, and times like the present moment.

The Library was faintly buzzing with activity; it was Sunday night and everyone was tense, dashing off the weekend's homework and casting ever-more-nervous glances at the clock as curfew approached.

"This is mental," said Cedric, throwing his quill down. "Arithmancy makes no sense to me. Why am I memorizing the magical properties of numbers and how they interact with each other? What's the application? Three pages of calculations and the only useful thing I can figure is that stirring a Boil-Cure Potion nineteen times will definitely make it…" he looked down at his notes, his brow furrowed. "Explode. Or, evaporate. Something bad, anyway."

"It's more about modeling and safeguards than figuring out new information," said Harry absently, scratching his ear as he pored over a dense text, his eyes never leaving the page. "A lot of spell creation and stuff like that is based on trial and error, and the 'error' part can be pretty lethal if you don't know what you're doing. So you use arithmancy to get you halfway there, where your wand movement should take so many seconds or the incantation should be so many syllables, and then you're in the safety margin where trying something new isn't going to kill you. Probably."

Cho blinked. "Where did you even learn that?"

"I heard…" he glanced up, looking around at the nearby tables. "Dumbledore explained it once. He and Flamel were having some kind of debate about alchemy. Most of it went straight over my head, but, you know, it was kind of interesting, and I looked up a few things…" Harry trailed off, almost embarrassed.

"Well," said Cedric tersely, "maybe you can tutor me. Or at least explain this daft book." He reached into his bag and brought out a thick textbook, which he placed on the table with an audible thump. "The Muggle who wrote it was either insane or some kind of genius, or both."

Cho leaned forward, studying the book. She looked dubious. "You're telling me a Muggle wrote a book called _Mysterium Cosmographicum_?"

"Like I said, mental," said Cedric. "Bloke goes on and on about shapes. Seems to think they're fairly important, I gather."

"I'll gladly trade you," said Harry, sighing over his own book. "I'm pretty much wasting my time with this one."

"What are you reading, anyway?" asked Cho.

Harry flipped the book closed and showed them the cover; the dark green leather had faded, and the title was barely visible in black lettering – _Quintessence: A Quest_.

"Isn't that a sixth-year Charms book?" Cedric flipped it open and started paging through it.

"Yeah," said Harry. "It doesn't even talk about specific Charms. It's all about unifying magical theory on a deeper level, finding common threads between separate areas of magic, tapping magical potential in uncommon objects, stuff like that. I've been reading the same page for fifteen minutes and I still don't know what I'm reading, other than it's in English."

"Why are you even trying?" asked Cedric, who closed the book with a snap.

Harry shrugged. "Remus said it changed my mum's life. Though he told me, straight-up, that he and Sirius could never make anything of it." He shook his head, then looked away for second. "Figured I owed it to her to try, at least."

Neither Cho nor Cedric had anything to say to that, and the silence was very heavy at the table for a few moments until a welcome distraction approached in the form of two Slytherin first-year girls.

The first one walked right up to the table and addressed Harry and his friends. "Hello, I'm Daphne Greengrass," she said. She had an easy smile, long, wavy black hair, and sea-green eyes. "My friend Tracey and I are trying to round up some of the lower years for the first meeting of the Inter-House Cooperation Committee."

Cho frowned. "What's the Inter-House Cooperation Committee?"

"Glad you asked!" said Daphne with a warm smile. "Tracey and I started it a few days ago." She indicated the other girl, who had hung back. Tracey was a tiny little thing with a blonde pixie-cut, blue eyes, and a fairly intense scowl, which was evenly distributed between Harry, Cedric, and Cho.

"I.H.C.C. is a group dedicated to fostering friendship and cooperation between the Houses," chirped Daphne. "Tracey and I noticed a distinct lack of those things between our own House and the rest of the school, and, well, we decided to do something about it."

Tracey didn't say anything, but her glare twitched in Daphne's direction, making it clear to all and sundry who had been the instigator, and who had been dragged along for the ride.

"Your House," said Cedric, carefully ignoring Tracey's death-glare, "being Slytherin, correct?"

"Was the crest on our robes enough of a clue, or did you have to start a formal investigation?" said Tracey. Her first entry into the conversation was punctuated with a heavy dollop of sarcasm.

Harry cleared his throat. "Um. Nice to meet you. You said your group is called 'ick,' right?"

"I.H.C.C.," said Daphne. She blinked, a tiny frown marring her otherwise sunny disposition. "You know, that name might need a bit of a tweak."

"Perhaps," said Harry. "What exactly is this meeting going to be like? Everyone sits around in a circle and sings campfire songs, then we take turns doing trust falls?"

"Something like that. There will," said Daphne solemnly, "be ice cream."

"Well, I'm sold," said Cedric.

"I'm so glad," muttered Tracey as she started to tug Daphne away. "Come on, you said we only had to do this for an hour."

"See you there!" said Daphne even as she was dragged away. "Good luck this weekend! To, um, both of you." She glanced between Harry and Cho, blushed, and then turned away. All of a sudden, Tracey wasn't having to put in nearly as much work getting Daphne away.

"Good luck to both of us?" asked Cho. "What does that even mean? Quidditch is a zero sum game – either way, one of us is walking off the pitch a loser."

Harry winced. "Do you have to put it like that, Cho? This is going to be hard enough as it is."

"I don't see what's so hard about it," said Cedric. "We just do our best, and everything will be fine."

"Yeah," said Harry. "Everything will be fine."

* * *

><p>Harry found that he really did enjoy Quidditch. He hadn't thought he would. He'd gone to the games last year, and he'd practiced with the Gryffindor team for more than a month, and nothing about those experiences had thrilled him.<p>

This thrilled him.

There was so much _noise_. Harry could hear it over the rush of air as he zoomed around the stadium. Lee Jordan's voice echoed around the pitch in staccato bursts, the crowd noise swelled as Ravenclaw's Chaser line swooped down in formation and attacked again, and a great rush of sound rose up as Oliver Wood blocked the shot.

The smaller noises stood out, too. The crack of Fred Weasley's bat as he walloped a Bludger at Rodger Davies. The whistle of air as Harry and Cho passed each other going opposite directions at a combined speed that was normally reserved for airplanes. The faint creaking of Harry's padded leather armguards as he hauled his broom over and into a tight, controlled turn.

Harry tore his eyes away from the pitch and glanced at the scoreboard for a second, long enough to see RAVENCLAW: 170 / GRYFFINDOR: 140. _This game is going to come down to me and Cho_, he thought grimly.

Almost casually, Harry swooped down and intercepted the Quaffle, dumping it off to Alicia with a back-pass. He shadowed the Gryffindor Chasers as they formed up, attacking in a loose triangle formation. Harry peeled off, drawing the fire of a Ravenclaw Beater, the wind ruffling his hair as he corkscrewed out of the iron ball's path.

Then he saw her. Cho had taken herself out of the play, rocketing away from it, diving towards the ground. Harry swore, braking sharply and tearing after her. It was no trick – Harry caught the golden glint of the Snitch just a few feet off the ground, flickering a few feet in random directions like a hummingbird.

Harry coaxed his broom to its top speed, gaining on Cho. As if sensing their approach, the Snitch took off, shooting along the grass towards one of the high walls circling the pitch. Taking a short angle to the wall, Harry skimmed alongside it as he dove, hoping to cut off the erratically buzzing Snitch. He could hear the roar of the crowd break down into individual shouts as he got closer to the stands.

Cho was coming in hot; she started to angle away from the wall as she slid into a pursuit line behind the Snitch. Harry had about a second as he dove towards her to make his move – he could either drop right in front of her, "sweeping her face" (as the Quidditch slang went) with his tail-twigs, pull right alongside her and try to muscle her into the wall, or slide in behind her and hope to use drafting to slingshot past her and make the grab. Of course, none of these options went through his head fully formed – it was the instinctual, split-second calculation born of training and talent.

He hesitated, and the choice was made for him.

Cho scooted out of reach, and he slid in behind her. His moment of hesitation had cost him: he wasn't quite close enough to really be drafting effectively, and even as he accelerated, holding himself flat to the broom, he knew he was too late.

As he shot over Cho's left shoulder, moving to cut her off, all he got was a good look at her fist closing around the struggling golden ball.

Harry felt his stomach drop into his shoes as he braked, hard, and came to a stop, barely hearing the whistle, the roar of the crowd. He hovered in the air, staring at the ground, seeing the Ravenclaw team mob Cho out of the corner of his eye.

"Tough loss, Harry."

"Get 'em next time, eh?"

His teammates flew over to him, nudging his shoulder, taking their time, subdued and putting on brave faces. Katie Bell gave him a wistful little smile and a pat on the shoulder, and Harry felt lower than dirt.

It wasn't that they'd lost, exactly, although losing didn't feel _good_, but…

"Potter." Oliver Wood hovered next to him, giving him an inscrutable look. He gestured towards the ground, towards one end of the stadium and the tunnel that led to the changing rooms. "Follow me."

Wood didn't say anything, and they flew slowly.

"I'll do better next time," said Harry, blurting it out.

"I know you will, and that's what scares me," said Wood.

Harry looked at him askance.

"I knew you were friends with the Hufflepuff Seeker when I brought you on, and I wasn't thrilled about it," said Wood. "I was even less thrilled when your other friend made her team." He inclined his head towards Cho, who'd flown down to the tunnel and was still receiving hearty congratulations from the Ravenclaws. "A friend is bad enough, but a friend, and a girl besides…"

"It's not like that," said Harry quickly.

"Isn't it?" said Wood. "If we'd been playing Slytherin, and that had been Higgs, you wouldn't have slammed him up against the boards?"

Harry bit his lip, and scowled. The two of them landed, gently, just inside the tunnel.

"That's what I thought," said Wood. He fixed Harry with a flat, level stare. "Don't do it again," he said. Then he sighed, and muttered, "I hate this part." He walked over to the Ravenclaw Captain and extended a hand.

Cho broke off from the crowd and approached. Harry knew he was in trouble the moment he saw her face. She was flushed, and behind the excitement, behind the thrill of victory, there was a healthy dose of anger.

Her face a thunderstorm, she walked right up to Harry, stood in front of him. He was still perched on his broom, hovering, his feet dragging on the ground.

"Did you do that on purpose?" she asked. "Did you let me win?"

"No!" said Harry. "I just… didn't want to hurt you."

Cho shoved him, hard. Harry tumbled off his broom and fell head over heels onto the ground. He yelped in pain as he hit the solid ground of the tunnel at an awkward angle.

"The feeling isn't mutual," said Cho. She knelt down, and her expression was one of the most complex Harry had ever seen. "I am _not_ a doll. If our positions were reversed, and it had been me coming in over the top like that, would you have held it against me if I'd swept your face? You had the angle, I saw it. Come on. Would you have cried about it? Stopped being my friend? Thought I was a monster?"

"No," said Harry, dusting off his legs and sitting up, a heavy feeling of guilt keeping him on the ground.

"That's right," she said. "When I step on to the pitch, I show up to _play_. Do me the same favor next time."

She got up, and looked away, and Harry saw her struggle with herself for a second. Then she reached out and extended a hand.

Harry took it, and Cho pulled him to his feet.

She grabbed a handful of his robes and pulled him close. Their faces were almost touching. Her eyes were big and dark. "Don't ever do it again, Harry."

"I won't," he said.

She turned away, and then looked back. "Better not talk to me for about a week if you don't want me to flip out and hex you. You spoiled the best moment of my life so far. Fair warning."

"Right."

It took Harry a few minutes to get up. By the time he did, the tunnel was empty, and it was a long, slow walk to the changing rooms.

* * *

><p>At the best of times, Potions was a trying experience. This was not the best of times. True to his word, Harry hadn't spoken to Cho in days. Compounding matters, today was Halloween. Harry didn't consider himself to be a particularly morbid person, but he could never escape those deep, dark thoughts on the anniversary of his parents' murder. It wasn't a good combination – spending more time alone than he was used to, and this big, heavy, important day. Contacting Sirius on the mirror helped, but Harry had to be careful about where he used the thing, and he was starting to feel a bit guilty about leaning on Sirius so much, anyway.<p>

The little things became not so little. Neville Longbottom canvased the Common Room for his toad for the sixth time, and Harry snapped at him. Professor Doge kept giving him these odd glances in Defense, and Harry was irritated enough that he almost confronted the man about it. His teammates were cool towards him, though they'd warmed up a little at the next practice. And Cedric was spending most of his time with Cho.

"I might have done the same thing," he'd confessed during a brief conversation in the corridors between classes that day, "and I'm glad I'll never have to find out. I'll be sure not to hold back when it's my turn, I mean. But I'm with her on this one, Harry. If you'd eased up on me, I'd have punched you."

Harry grimaced as he cut up a newt tail into thin slices. Potions was an irritation all by itself, and today…

"McLaggen, please explain to me why you chose to boil your potion to the point of uselessness?" asked Snape in that silkily-smooth voice that Harry couldn't stand.

"Vaisey, your work is… acceptable," said Snape, robes swishing as he moved away from Vaisey's table. Vaisey was currently struggling to stir his potion, which had the consistency of wet cement.

Harry rolled his eyes. Snape had never been a particularly unbiased teacher, and Harry firmly believed he'd have to literally concoct the Elixir of Life to earn an O from the man.

Concentrating on his potion wasn't a terribly effective way to distract himself. Harry absently adjusted the heat, damping the fire below his cauldron, his mind elsewhere. He'd gone over it again and again – that moment of hesitation, when he'd backed off. If he hadn't hesitated, and he'd drafted behind Cho correctly, he might have at least contested the catch. He hadn't _meant _to hesitate. In his head, he hadn't thought, _oh, she's a girl, I'd better back off_. But, if Harry was honest about it, that sentiment was there. Buried deep, perhaps, and not easily acknowledged, but there all the same.

It was a problem. The day, Halloween, was a day of _what ifs_ for Harry. _What if I hadn't backed off Cho?_ _ What if my parents were still alive?_ Hardly equal questions. But they both nagged at him, wore at him, refused to leave him alone.

"Class dismissed," said Snape. "Those of you who have managed to produce acceptable potions, leave a sample at the front table. The majority of you should simply hang your head in shame at your woefully lacking abilities."

Harry let the class file out. He took his time bottling a sample of his own Swelling Solution, and made his way to the front table just as the last of the students filed out.

Setting his sample down in the little wooden rack along with the others, he looked up to see Snape's dark eyes studying him.

"Why's it have to be like this, Snape?" murmured Harry. "You're not this much of a git during the summer."

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Potter," said Snape, almost reflexively. He leaned forward. "And if I hear you mention anything unrelated to Potions class to me during the school year again, points shall be the least of your worries."

"Fine, be that way," snapped Harry. "I was going to invite you over for tea, but, you know, now I'm just not feeling it."

He stormed from the classroom. He really was starved for company if he was considering a chat with _Snape, _of all people, Harry thought with a wry grin.

Harry made his way to the library. Cho and Cedric were there, and he almost went over to them, but chickened out at the last second. Cho probably wouldn't _really _hex him, but whenever they'd crossed paths over the last few days, she'd seemed a bit… twitchy.

Instead, Harry sat down next to Hermione Granger. Harry hadn't had a chance to speak to the first-year girl much, despite seeing her in the Common Room nearly every day. From what he could tell, she was reasonably bright, very studious, and, to hear Fred and George's younger brother tell it, a complete teacher's pet.

She looked up from her work. Her fingers were ink-stained, and the parchment she was working on was a few feet long, with very small writing. "Why aren't you with your friends?"

Harry rolled his shoulders, uncomfortable. "My friends aren't very happy with me right now."

Hermione glanced across the room, looking at Cho and Cedric. "Why not?"

"Because I didn't crash into one of them on my broom."

Frowning, the brunette nibbled the point of her quill for a second. Harry could practically see her working through the problem as she shifted through several subtle expressions.

"That doesn't make any sense. That can't be why," she said at last, with an air of finality.

"Let me put it in a more personally familiar way," said Harry. "Would you like an extra five points on all your tests because you're a girl?"

"No," she said, frowning, her nose wrinkling into an immediate and endearing look of grave injustice.

"That's why."

They were quiet for a few minutes. Harry closed his eyes and rested his head against the library table. The scratching of Hermione's quill was almost soothing.

"You should apologize to her," said Hermione after a while. Harry looked up, and saw that she was looking over at Cedric and Cho with a wistful, closed-off expression on her face. "Good friends are very important, so I'm told."

Harry didn't quite know what to say to that. If he'd been in a better mood, he might have summoned up the empathy to befriend her, or even just console her. As it was, he kind of awkwardly patted her back, mumbled something about needing to send off a letter, and slunk away.

After a quick detour to the dorms to fetch a few items from his trunk, Harry went to the Owlery. Hedwig greeted him from the rafters with a sedate hoot. The air was rather cold and drafty, but not quite drafty enough to mask the scent of dozens of owls.

"Fancy a fly, girl?" said Harry, hefting his broom.

Hedwig ruffled her feathers, leaning forward excitedly, and spread her wings. She dove, soaring majestically through one of the many open-air windows in the tower. Harry grinned and dove after her, tipping over his broom and falling out the window, savoring the rush of air and the way his nerves tingled as he fell, his body unaware for a second that it wasn't plummeting to its death.

He pulled up, leveling out, and took off after Hedwig, who was winging her way around Ravenclaw Tower. Harry followed at a moderate pace, the bag he had slung across his back preventing him from anything too audacious.

Hedwig led him around the perimeter of the castle, finally soaring upwards in a lazy spiral, not headed anywhere in particular.

Harry put on a burst of speed and pulled alongside her. "Come on, let's head down. I've got a letter for you to send, just as soon as I write it." Harry extended an arm, pointing, and Hedwig dipped a wing, and they both descended towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest near Hagrid's hut.

Alighting, Harry carefully set aside his broom and opened his bag. He pulled out a quill and parchment and a well-worn French/English dictionary. Using his wand, he carefully conjured a small stone tablet. It would serve as a writing surface, if not a great one. A desk would have been preferable, but that was beyond Harry's ability, at least for now.

Hedwig perched in a nearby tree, preening herself, and Harry began to write, methodically consulting the dictionary. It was the painstaking work of nearly an hour to put down even a few relatively simple sentences in what Harry hoped was passable French.

_Dear Fleur,_

_Thank you for the letter. I am fine. It was very nice to meet you, too. You are an excellent flier, even better than a dragon. Ha ha. I will try to learn your language better so I don't sound like an idiot. Enclosed is a picture of Hogwarts. I hope you like it. Your parents' house is nice/charming/quaint. I'm not sure I used the right word there. Something good, anyway. I hope you have a good year. I'll write you again._

_-Harry_

Harry rolled up the letter, tied it off with a bit of string, and then whistled sharply. Hedwig spread her wings and glided down from her tree.

"What do you say, girl?" asked Harry as he tied the letter to her leg. "Think you're up for it? All the way to Beauxbatons?"

Hedwig's reply was to cuff him with her wing, and then take to the air. Harry watched her until she was just a speck on the horizon, then started to clean up, stuffing the leftover parchment and quill back into his bag. This done, he sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. Writing to Fleur had been a good distraction, but now it was over, and it was still Halloween, and he still missed talking to Cho and Cedric.

He pulled out the wooden flute Hagrid had given him, feeling the weight of it. Glancing around to make sure he was alone, Harry started to play. He hadn't spent too much time learning the instrument, but he'd practiced enough that he could get through a few tunes and have them come out at least recognizable, if a bit warbling.

It felt good. He sank into the music, and it had the intended effect. He was playing, and not thinking. He found himself starting the same song over again as he finished it. Maybe it was time to ask Hagrid for another lesson; the enormous man knew an impressive array of Irish folk tunes.

He looked up, the last few notes of "The Flower of the Flock" trailing off. There was a light coming from the Forbidden Forest. It was red-gold and glowing faintly, just barely visible through the trees. Harry watched it for a few seconds. It seemed almost like a will-o'-the-wisp, the way it flickered sporadically. Something about it drew Harry to his feet, though. He stuffed the flute back in his bag, grabbed his broom, mounted it, and started forward, slowly, mindful of fairy tales of dancing lights that lured travelers to their doom.

The light seemed to recede as he approached, skirting through the sparse, outlying trees of the Forest.

Harry ghosted through the trees, the lack of noise as he guided his broom towards the light a bit unsettling.

As he sped forward, he saw it for just a second before it ducked out of sight around a tree. It was a bird. A bird with red-gold plumage, whose feathers cast a flickering light, more noticeable now in the darkening shadows of the forest. It had a long tail, which swished as the bird turned around to regard Harry with coal-black eyes.

Harry stopped, going still. He felt…something. The bird wasn't just looking at him, it was _looking_. It had a kind of presence to it. Harry was just about to move forward, or speak, or do _something_, when the bird vanished in a soft explosion of fire.

Letting out an inarticulate exclamation of surprise, Harry drew his wand. It became clear after a few seconds that there was nothing there; the bird was simply gone. After a few moments of furious thought, Harry reached into his robes, into the secret pocket, and pulled out a mirror.

"Sirius Black," he muttered, holding it close to his mouth.

"Harry?" said Sirius's voice. The image in the mirror wobbled, and tilted up to show Sirius, blinking, his hair in disarray. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just wanted to ask you something."

Sirius stared at him. "Do you know what time it is?"

"No."

"Neither do I," said Sirius. "Which means it's some god-awful hour in the middle of the night. What is it?"

"Is there a phoenix that lives in the Forbidden Forest?"

Sirius smiled, albeit sleepily. "Oh, you met Fawkes?"

"The phoenix has a name?"

"Sure," said Sirius. "He helped James and I out of a few tight spots when we got in a little too much trouble with the centaurs. Fawkes is kind of like Hogwarts' mascot, or its guardian or something. I think Albus named him – I know they've crossed paths before. I remember Aberforth telling a story about a phoenix saving their bacon during the Grindelwald days; I think that was Fawkes."

"Huh," said Harry. He glided forward, moving to where the phoenix had vanished. The grass wasn't even scorched.

"Your mum was interested in him," said Sirius, smiling fondly. "She asked us all kinds of questions about Fawkes once your dad and I let it slip that we'd met him."

"Oh…" said Harry, something clicking in his head as he put together disparate pieces of information. His mum's journal, near the end, had been singularly focused on the Founders, on how they'd left clues for clever students to uncover, secrets built into the walls of Hogwarts itself, and one of those secrets…

"Do you need something else?" said Sirius. "I want to go back to sleep and pretend this was just an odd dream."

"Sure, go ahead, I'll talk to you later," said Harry absently. His brain was practically whirring, and he was itching to get back to his dorm and pore over his mother's journal.

Sirius signed off without a word, his head hitting the pillow before the image faded back into an ordinary mirror.

Stowing the mirror back in his robes, Harry turned around his Nimbus Two-Thousand and sped back through the trees, past Hagrid's hut, and towards the castle. As he neared the massive gates to the Entrance Hall, he dismounted and walked forward. As he approached, he heard a tumult of sound, and realized that he was probably walking into the middle of dinner.

_That's right, the Halloween Feast. Well, it's supposed to be good, and I have to eat sometime… _Harry was already moving ahead of dinner, at least mentally. He'd ask Katie about the phoenix book, get the title from her, run to the library and get it before it closed, cross-reference facts from it with his mother's journal, use the Cloak to sneak out after-hours, and by morning he could have found a Founder's Chamber with an unimaginable treasure trove of knowledge.

He had to get through dinner first, though.

Resigned to another lonely, loud meal (the addition of Ron to Percy, Fred and George had drastically increased the number of loud arguments at the Gryffindor Table, owing to something Oliver Wood called Weasley Critical Mass), Harry pushed the doors open.

He was confronted with chaos. Hardly anyone was sitting; the entire Hall was filled with students milling about, coalescing into groups and then breaking apart, like some kind of massive school of fish. A dozen shouts and a hundred more moderate voices mixed into a wall of sound that assaulted Harry as he walked inside. Up at the Head Table, Aberforth Dumbledore had his hands spread, gesturing, trying to maintain some semblance of order.

"Prefects!" called Aberforth, his voice magically enhanced. "I want head-counts for all years in five minutes. Students, please remain at your House table and stay _quiet_!"

Harry grabbed a passing seventh-year Hufflepuff, even as he scanned the room for Cedric and Cho. "What's happening?" he asked her. "I just got here."

"There's a huge fire on the second floor," she said. "It's mostly contained in a hallway, and all the professors are busy dealing with it. You should get to your table and check in with a prefect."

"I'll do that," said Harry, though he didn't move. For a second, he thought – fire, phoenix… but, no, it couldn't be.

He took a step towards the crowd, finally having spotted Cho at the Ravenclaw table, and then he felt something grip his arm sharply. Twisting, Harry saw nothing, but nevertheless he stumbled through the door and into the little anteroom just off the Entrance Hall. It was the same little room where he'd waited to be Sorted with the rest of the first-years.

Harry wrenched himself out of the invisible grip, diving into his robes for his wand. For the sixteenth time, he swore to himself he was going to start wearing his father's Auror holster around the castle, no matter how self-conscious it made him feel.

"Who's there?" he said. Hearing nothing, he swept his wand in a broad arc and muttered, "_Inrita_."

"Interesting," said Professor Doge, shimmering into view, his Disillusionment Charm breaking. "You didn't use a _Finite_. You used a more specific, more powerful Countering Charm. Care to explain that, Mr. Potter?"

"Care to explain why you dragged me into this room, and why you're not helping the other professors with the fire?" asked Harry, not lowering his wand.

"It's quite simple," said Doge. "I started the fire in order to guarantee us a private conversation."

Harry blinked, the tip of his wand twitching up. "You started a fire so you could talk to me? That's incredibly dangerous. Not to mention a bit crazy."

"No one will be hurt," said Doge, waving his hand. "However, it's a magical fire that will prove tricky to deal with, and the Headmaster needed all hands on deck, so to speak… including those troublesome Aurors who're so inconveniently underfoot."

"Tell me what you want, or I start casting."

"Indeed?" said Doge, quirking an eyebrow. "I find myself curious as to just what would come out of your wand if you did. You've been a bit careful in my class this year, Mr. Potter. But to the trained eye, you're quite clearly holding back. I daresay you've had a rather…unique…. head-start when it comes to learning magic."

"And what would you know about that?" said Harry. He glanced behind him at the closed door, and tightened the grip on his wand.

"Rather a lot," said Doge. It struck Harry just how different Doge was out of class… he was much more animated, more present, than he was as a Professor, where he was competent but boring. He leaned forward. "Tell me, Mr. Potter. What do you know of the Dumbledore siblings?"

"Just the usual things," said Harry guardedly. "Aberforth is the Headmaster, Albus is the disgraced Chief Warlock-in-exile."

"Ah," said Doge. "Not them. Their sister, Ariana."

"I know she's at St. Mungo's," said Harry. "Not much else."

"Then I think you'll find what I have to say quite interesting," said Doge. "And the first thing you should know is that her last name isn't Dumbledore, and hasn't been for quite some time. It's Doge."


End file.
